Monday July 21, 2008

I walked out of Stretch tonight as usual, into a throng of people, inching my way towards the front desk.  The unmistakable sound of Tim's voice, high above the crowd:  Jazz Fitness in OOOOONE! Jazz Basix in TWOOOOOO! MV Funk in THREEEEEE! And the Bridge in FOOOOOOUR!!!  He is standing on a chair behind the front desk.  The calling of classrooms has become a tradition at Dance 101.  An unintentional piece of studio culture - we've scratched our heads and pondered more professional sounding methods - but nothing has seemed quite right and old habits die hard.  I wonder sometimes how it must be for newcomers - what must they think? Hopefully they are charmed by our eccentricities - afterall - it's one of the many things that make us who we are.

Disco, traditional jazz, African and Zumba has made it's entrance into our world and we couldn't be more excited about it.  Three new classes in the hopper:  Old School Jazz, Lyricism and Retro Go-Go are soon to debut and we find ourselves embracing the "lighter" side of dance.  We need a balance: technical, fitness and now just plain fun.

Funny how things take off on their own - we didn't intentionally set out to bring disco back - but that is what is happening.  You watch.  Within 6 months, the disco craze will resurface in Atlanta and it will spread virally through the night scene, on TV and radio.  How do I know this?  Because it's time.  Dance culture is expanding to include period dance.  More people are dancing now - the landscape is changing - as it always does.  For every person you bring with you to class, they bring someone, and that person brings someone and that's how it spreads.  Before long Atlanta will have a community of really good disco dancers crowding the clueless off the dance floor and requesting Donna Summer and Barry White.  It's crazy!  And you know what's REALLY even more crazy than that?  I saved my disco dresses for Paulina.  I have them!!!  I thought by the time she was an adult, my dresses would be a novelty.  Little did I think she might actually wear them!

For Dance 101, it's teachers and students, these are exciting times!  How fortunate are we to be right here right now - pioneers all of us - on the cutting edge of this dance revolution.  It's just the beginning. --Ofelia