Shake Yer Tailfeather

You know, there’s a lot you can say about a person by the way they behave on the dance floor. Like, for instance, you have the meek ones, who dance the shuffle, never take more than three square inches of space and start nervously every time anyone comes within a square mile of their vicinity (which incidentally makes for very interesting dance moves-kinda like you’re on a hellish roller coaster ride).

Then there are their diametric opposites - the flashpans! Favourite dance movements include expansive hand gestures frequently leading to spilt drinks, cigarette burns and black eyes. It’s easy to spot them in a crowd by the number of people doing odd hop-on-one-foot moves accompanied by yowls of pain around them.

Then there’s the ‘wannabe’ dancer - now he’s a chap who avidly watches MTV and promptly tries to re-enact the scenes for real. Never mind that he’s not exactly built like Usher and that he really can’t carry those moves off. Hint: watch out for that faux bling-bling he’ll be sporting around his neck and the dark glasses in the middle of the night (me thinks it’s just a disguise, so people don’t point and laugh when they see him the next morning).

The next can’t-miss of course is the ‘I-only-dance-when-I’m drunk’ dancer. Word to the wise: you’d better steel yourself with a stiff drink or two before you gather the courage to watch this specimen. Characteristics include manic dancing to three songs and then hitting the bar and getting steadily sloshed for the next four. Then it’s back to manic dancing for the next three.

Now a stone cold sober, never-even-had-my-shirt-unbuttoned-let-alone-let-my-hair-down type often accompanies him. He will hit the dance floor with the same grim determination as he tackles his Bania Boss’s balance sheets. Unfortunately he ends up looking like a still grasshopper on a bad acid flashback. Not a very pretty sight.

Neither, of course are the Siamese twins. These couples generally enter and leave the dance floor joined at the hip, and what never ceases to amaze me is that while the rest of their bodies (read flailing arms and legs) move individually, the hips don’t budge. Like I said- Siamese.

The ones that are truly a pleasure to watch, quite often are not necessarily the best dancers with the hippest moves. It’s the ones with the largest smile on their faces - the ones, who dance for themselves, to the inner music of their soul, sway to the rhythm of their own heartbeat - and the rest of the world can go to hell in a hand basket. Now that is a dancer.