Love in the Time of Rolling Around on the Floor

Dance school has a way of taking the innocuously comfortable out of the "straight and unattached male" demographic. Jury's still out as to how I feel about that.

The funny thing is, contrary to popular opinion, dance class is not sexy. Rolling around on the floor with a partner is hard work, and it tends to transform any sensual potential into weight, joints, and spatial impulses. When you're focusing on phrasing and nuances of movement you're not seeing what an audience would see, you're operating from a dance student's perspective in which the body is an expressive medium to be trained and manipulated. Growing deeper into your body and developing your sensitivity to touch is by no means analogous to delving into sensuality. If it were, a trained dancer would be driven mad with lust.

That said, there is a certain pleasure to be had when your body is full to the brim of pumping blood and awareness, your eyes full of significant focus, meeting the pale blues of agirl across the room and knowing that she is in the same enlivened physical state as you are. Then the port de bras with cambre ends, and it's back to fondue, shoulders square with pelvis, extend through the toes, support from your iliapsoas...