Night at the Roxbury — errrrrr Middle Eastern Dance Party
dancing my heart out & asked to leave the dance floor
There was a voice and it was G(o)d just telling me to dance.
I had just eaten the Sagamaki, vegetarian Dolmathes (my favorite), Avgolemono, vegetarian Mousakas, a few glasses of greek wine, and I flew onto the dance floor a phoenix, like great balls of fire, paroxysm of selfhood,a gypsy landslide, like a sanglier venturing out of the forest to sip on a stream at dusk cooly, the blur of a jackrabbit breaking free from all predators naked in a whir of snow and frost, with the pomp of a Native American rite, so much celebration in every evocative dance step, with nature as a witness, pachamama venerated, proud, loving, and well-loved — like a planetary kaleidoscopic revolution, like a cheetah, like an embarrassed peacock underdressed for the occasion.
I had only brought two outfits on Thursday and this was Saturday. I hadn’t showered in two days, my hair was beyond greaser greasy, though still a distinguished enough freak flag, curls spun gold.
“You can sit down” the drummer said.
“Please leave the dance floor,” he ordered, and I went, worried that somehow my dancing had offended someone.
But there were the professionals dancers paid for the occasion and a sort of billing to respect. I could not understand any of the songs or what they were about, except Happy Birthday — there were three different Mediterranean birthday parties all happening simultaneously. Some people were smoking stogies indoors and even the musicians smoked cigarettes while playing.
“Happy Birthday,” my companion toasted. My birthday had been just a week before.
Where on earth could we be? Not Kansas, that’s for sure.
Even after they asked me to sit down a few times, to leave the dance floor, I could not just let it be, I had to go back to the floor and dance some more.
No smoking on the dance floor, another detractor stated, instructing me to sit down, because I had been dancing with a thin pall mall menthol floating between my hands and lips.
I acquiesced, but only for a moment. I put the cigarette out in the small bowl of water provided as an ashtray.
The dancing continued for hours and I asked for more wine, only dancing.
I persisted, so enthralled by the music as sure as an army of thousands of years, thousands of sounds, and the percussion and the keeping time here timeless golden oasis in the desert of the ordinary.
Soon enough, my feet got dirty, there were loads of singles, dollars on the floor that kept getting stuck to my feet, left there for a belly dancer who had performed earlier.
I feel like I’m on another energy level, I told my companion for the evening.
He had encouraged me gaily while also affirming the cultural differences at stake, even if as he claimed — he was the only full Greek in the entire Greek establishment and the music they were playing was certainly more broadly middle eastern.
I kept trying, even going back and forth between the dance floor and table, trying to get it right, here and there willing myself to slow down, to pay attention, and some of the young women in such an understated way would dance with me, and smile so beautifully, and in a way that possessed the confidence I lacked here.
The percussion was so fast and variable and I was so captivated by it that I could not understand the simplicity of their swaying and such subtle gestures, conservative, small movements.
But their smiles gave away my own sense of exile, and as I tried to smile back, it was then I realized that I was actually feeling so shy.
They were smiling at me good humored-ly and even gently encouraging me though at the same time telling me to tone it down, to dwell on earth for a bit, if even for a split second.
My companion continued to remind me later that evening that I was the only white person in the whole place.
Given how many times I had been asked to sit down I was really worried that my dancing was not appreciated, and in fact, that they did not like it.
After though, my companion and I ran into the musicians minus the violinist on our way out, and I thanked them warmly and first two of them looked at me surprised and said “it’s her!”
“We thought you were a kid,” they said, with wide eyes.
“It’s her” they said to the other, and he only confirmed what the first two had said.
The drummer who kept telling me to sit down — much to my chagrin now explained that the only reason he said it was so that security would not come to escort me off the dance floor.
“So we will see you next Saturday?”
They said it very hopefully.
“Yes!” I said, without any hesitation, with the honest enthusiasm of a child.
