Each week, amateur dancers stretch, twirl, bend and shimmy their hearts
out, converging at dozens of dance classes held in Los Gatos and
Saratoga. The Los Gatos-Saratoga Community Education and Recreation
Department offers African dance, country and western line dance, tap
and more. Apparently, it's never too late to take up beginning dance
classes. Even if novices don't know the difference between salsa and
samba or rumba and a rhombus, dance instructors say there is room for
even the most challenged beginner.
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Dance instructor Sue Flanagan (second from left) shows student Barbara Valdez some tango moves as fellow class members look on.
"I can teach anybody," said Yvonne Carr, a belly dancing teacher who
for 38 years has been helping her students--mostly women--get over
their shyness about the dance form. Once she's on the dance floor, Carr
drops her given name and goes by her stage persona, Farouche, an Arabic
word that means "wild but gentle one."
At the Los Gatos Recreation Center, Farouche watched as six of her
students performed with finger cymbals, veils and swords. The women
danced in brightly colored costumes adorned with sequins. However,
their hips swayed not to the dulcet tones of Middle Eastern music but
to a modern, synthesized tune. Besides dancing to traditional music,
Farouche also choreographs traditional belly dancing moves to
contemporary music.
"Everything they do, I create from scratch," she said.
This particular group of students has performed at hospitals and
charity balls, and on this night they demonstrated their skills. They
have an uncanny ability to move body parts independently of each other,
such as isolating the ribcage so that it is the only region shaking.
Other times, they move different parts of the body together in
combinations that would seem impossible to the untrained dancer. They
showed how they shake their hips, in a move called the shimmy, while
walking.
"It takes almost a year to shimmy and walk and look normal," Farouche said.
Judie Kauffman of Los Gatos has been with Farouche for 20 years and was
first drawn to belly dancing because of its exotic look. Belly dancing
gets a bad rap, but the reputation that it has as a suggestive activity
is unfounded, she said.
"There's nothing risque about it," she said. "This is Los Gatos, California, where there's not anything shady."
In another class at the community room at Los Gatos High School,
students were mastering the steps of salsa rueda under the tutelage of
dance instructor Samy Makar. Salsa rueda dancers stand in a circle and
rapidly exchange partners. Makar called out the steps, and dancers
responded, succeeding some of the time. They'd get their arms twisted
and knotted and found themselves standing in awkward positions. After
some instruction, they freed themselves and tried one more time.
A man gave his hips a slight sway as he moved around the circle, and a
woman closed her eyes as she raised her arms above her head, as if she
were losing herself in the moment.
"Suena," Makar called out, and the members of the circle simultaneously put their feet down forcibly.
"Suena means stomp. You stomp on [the fifth beat]," he said. "It usually helps to synchronize and get back on the rhythm."
It's the aspect of changing partners that appeals to Makar's students.
"This type of dance is more fun," said Chian Phon Lin of Saratoga.
Two years ago, Lin discovered salsa rueda when he visited a salsa night
club in Beijing. He got hooked and now uses dancing as a supplement to
his running regimen.
"Part of the reason I do this is exercise," said Lin, a trim
57-year-old. "It's almost like cross-training. Dancing is more fun than
running. I still want to be in good shape when I'm 80."
Perhaps its the lyrical nature of dance music or maybe it's the ability
to feel light on one's feet, but many local dance enthusiasts say they
dance to temporarily forget about their daily problems. A ballroom
dance session in Saratoga found two local elected officials waltzing
and swinging the night away. David Baxter, mayor of Monte Sereno, and
his wife, Linda, look to their weekly dance class as an opportunity to
spend time together.
"It's date night," he said.
Meanwhile, Michael Gipe, who heads the Saratoga Union School District
board, straightened his back and held up his chin as he tangoed with
his wife across the dance floor. For added effect, he hummed along with
the music.
Their intention was to learn the fundamental rhythms and the right posture, "but we don't practice," Gipe said.
A couple who does practice is Lynn and Tin Tu of Saratoga, Gipe pointed
out, as they whirled by him. The Tus have been taking dance lessons
every Wednesday evening for just two years, but they moved around the
dance floor with assurance and grace.
"We try hard to remember the footwork," Tin said.
They said they began dancing now that their children are getting more
independent. As the background music in class went from a slow waltz to
a fast foxtrot, they moved accordingly. Lynn said it takes not just
fancy footwork but teamwork to be a good dance couple.
"If I remember the steps and he forgets, I get frustrated because I want him to lead," she said.
Dan Fischer and his fiancée, Jennifer Webber, both of Campbell, were
inspired to try a ballroom dancing class in part because of the
television show Dancing with the Stars. They were not alone. Their
instructor Christine Belanger said that it's not coincidence that more
students have been signing up since the show came on. The show has
demonstrated that ballroom dancing is not just for the AARP set,
Belanger said.
"It's been a blessing for ballroom dancing," she said.
Dance styles originate in specific cultures, but influences from
immigrants bring styles to different parts of the world, making them
popular with a new group of people. Dance can transcend words.
Nonverbal communication between dancers is what Sue Flanagan stressed
in her Argentine tango class in Los Gatos. In Argentine tango, which is
different from ballroom tango, there is no choreographed steps for
students to follow.
"One of the differences about Argentine tango is the unique ability of
two strangers to dance and improvise," Flanagan said. "The leader
improvises, and the follower interprets what the leader conveys with
his body."
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Working under the watchful eye of instructor Sue Flanagan (left), dancers Alone Gorer and Alex Baxter practice their tango steps.
The key in following is to pay attention to how the leader's chest and shoulders turn, said Elizabeth Baxter of Monte Sereno.
"You have to be in tune with the other person," she said.
She and her brother Alex enrolled in Flanagan's class, figuring it
would be a different and interesting activity for the summer. The fact
that they know each other so well was an advantage, but they also got
to know what it's like to dance with different partners.
"In class, everybody dances with everybody, and you get a lot of
practice dancing with a lot of abilities and styles," said Baxter, a
junior at St. Francis High School.
Argentine tango was a new experience for Baxter, but Aparna Mahesh
discovered it in a tango dance hall in Vienna five years ago and fell
in love.
"Somebody asked me for a dance," said the Los Gatos resident. "He led
and I followed. I made tons of mistakes, but I just followed the way he
was dancing. I thought it was such a beautiful dance."
She arrived a bit early to her Argentine tango lesson one evening. As
she waited for class to start, she danced by herself. She put up her
arms around an imaginary partner and worked on her footwork.
"It's an outlet for me when I dance," she said. "You don't think about
issues or problems. You enjoy the moment and the recorded music. It's a
liberation of the mind."
