Dancing in Edinburgh
When I think of Edinburgh, I think of dancing.
My first few weeks in Edinburgh, when I was still friendless and had few time obligations, the days took forever, each like the next. I didn’t know what to do with myself; I was purposeless, and I enjoyed exploring Edinburgh but felt lost with so much time on my hands. I was trapped by my own newfound sense of freedom.
A few weeks in, however, and I discover the swing dancing community. I’d known it existed, but I hadn’t realized how very good and abundant the dances in Edinburgh are. I find out at my first dance about all the different swing organizations there are, offering classes and shows and meet-ups. I start dancing once a week, but soon I add more, and more, and more, until my life revolves around dancing.
The days don’t grow shorter, but they do pass much more speedily than they had at the beginning, the busy and unceasing weeks soon passing as urged on insistently by the regular dances that fill my evenings. On Mondays, there are lindy hop lessons and dancing at Potterow; Tuesday is for blues except on the occasional Tuesday when I attend a lindy hop dance taking place in the upstairs of a bookstore beneath the castle; Wednesday is Balboa and even more lindy hop at Summerhall; Thursdays are even more lindy hop across town. If I’m not too tired by the weekend, there are six more hours of swing classes, or occasionally special events with live music and vintage clothing and, above all, a grand sense of occasion.
For each of these, I walk through the streets at night after the days’ commuting is over and the city has begun to quiet. My bag in hand, I stride through the streets in anticipation, my heart fluttering as soon as I can hear the hints of jazz reach me from a block or two away. A beat of a drum as I turn the corner, a squeal of a sax as I cross the street. The steady, swinging, easy beat provides a metronome for my feet.
I enter. I smile before I even take off my coat; the feel of community, combined with the music, always seems to have that effect on me.
Soon enough, I am dancing. I am the beat, and the horns, and the tsk of the drums, and the pauses and slow syncopation; when the ivories are tickled I feel tickled, too. The lights are dark but my cheeks glow red; the night is cool but I feel warm from the heat of my partner’s body when they hold me close and from the dance and from the jazz somehow, though I can’t explain how a string of notes can make me shiver or sweat depending on how they’re played. I feel electric — not just because of the endorphins, but because of the connection, the physical connection when my partner swings me out and we are extended as far away from each other as we can be without slipping each out of each other’s grasp, hands slick with sweat, or when my partner pulls me close with their hand in the small of of back and our other hands clasped and we’re pressed together. I feel electric because of the synchronicity, the trust.
I dance the night away. I can only leave because the music is turned off and I know the next night holds more dancing.
I walk back elated. The night air is refreshingly cool. In this state of exuberance, there is beauty even in the darkness and empty streets; the gleam of the lamplight seems majestic, the silence melodious. I stretch out this walk back, breathing, for though the dancing is over it feels like it hasn’t yet ended when I have the streets to myself and the last tune of the evening still fills my head and my heart.
My time in Edinburgh was cut short by the pandemic sweeping the globe. I was devastated, of course, when I heard I’d have to come home, but by the time of my departure date I was ready to go. Dancing had been one of the first activities stopped by the virus; such close contact with so many strangers make social dancing the perfect opportunity for mass contagion. Without dancing and the dancing community, Edinburgh, fascinating and wonderful as it is, seemed empty to me, even before any other businesses started closing down. When my heart now aches for Edinburgh, it aches for dancing the most. For me, Edinburgh and dancing were one and the same.
