Dance Classes

I’ve managed to run a few dance classes on base. We’ve had some Cha Cha, Samba and Rumba. I’d love to do ballroom, but we don’t quite have the space to do it safely. There is a big open space we could use, but the ground is uneven and has lots of stones, a number of which are moderately loose and could definitely turn an ankle. Absolutely not a good idea for Quickstep!! Tango might be ok now that I think about it. Hmmm.

Anyway, we’ve had reasonable turn out for the classes I’ve done. Lots of people who have never danced before giving it a go, which always makes my heart sing. Some of the volunteers, some of the international staff, some of the Nepali staff. And in some cases, we’ve had some of the female masons and our housekeepers join in too.

My dance classes always allow anyone to lead or follow (or do both if they fancy) so the gender balance doesn’t matter to me at all. And in all but one of my classes so far, people have changed partners throughout the class (in some cases also changing roles during the class). However, it is not appropriate for the female community members (masons and housekeepers) to dance with male volunteers or male staff, so I’ve had to make sure that they are dancing with each other or dancing with female volunteers or female staff. This has been easy to orchestrate so far. In one class I divided it in half so four couples (with men in the midst) were changing partners amongst themselves, and the other four couples (masons, housekeepers, female volunteers, female staff) were changing amongst themselves. So everyone got to change partners and I didn’t have to make a very big deal over who was allowed to dance with who. In another case, the starting couples were working so well together that I just let them dance together for the whole session (and in that case, there were limited options for the partner swapping anyway due to the attendees).

The classes have been an hour which is enough time to get people zoned in and improving, but not so much time that people get too sick of it all or too exhausted. And people really, really loved Samba!!!

And of course, I have absolutely loved being able to dance and being able to teach dance. I really miss both of these things so very much and it is an utter privilege to be able to keep them going while I’m here. I do still miss a dance floor, dance shoes, and lots of the lovely people I often dance with back in the UK.