It’s not that I don’t like you. I just don’t want to die.
Re-entering the (high-risk! extreme!) world of social dance
I used to breathe into the faces of strangers. We would lean into each others’ bodies and exhale politely through our noses, faces ten centimetres apart. We could learn the pace of each other’s hearts, speaking through our skins as our muscles synchronized in movement. On hot nights, we would taste each other’s sweat. If you were one of my strangers, I would know you by your scent; wafts of minty-freshness and coconut oiled hair, or the decaying pong of a mouth, which (you might reasonably expect) serves as a graveyard for decaying moths. It used to be unfortunate to encounter such a mouth. But what’s the worst that can happen? It’s not like bad breath ever killed anyone. Yes — I used to breathe into the faces of strangers.
Then, suddenly, breathing was a dangerous thing to do. Closed were the bars, gyms, church halls and public parks where every night of the week, on every continent of the earth, people would gather to social dance. Put on a playlist from Spotify, invite a partner onto the floor, fumble or flow through Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba, or Zouk. Social dance communities are diverse and vibrant, they sustain the livelihoods of DJs, dance instructors, and event organisers — they are social circles, support groups, dating pools, and exercise groups for tens of thousands. Social dance scenes are complete societies with their own rituals, behavioral codes, and modes of governance. In an airborne pandemic, however, there are few activities more foolhardy. So in a matter of weeks, like the cascading flow of black dominos, public dance classes and events just — stopped. Facebook events were cancelled. Chats, usually pinging several times an hour, were silent. Those who depended, for their rent, on enticing an ever-growing number of people to stand face-to-face and learn the basic step, or a simple turn — they innovated, transitioning classes and even social events online. I attended a zoom of people across the world grooving alone in their bedrooms, some using pillows for partners; softer and more compliant perhaps than a regular human. Certainly safer.
As weeks of lockdown turned to months, I yearned for the dancing nights full of music, friends, and wine — and also reveled in the forced reprieve from the emotional pressures that social dancing can bring. Before the pandemic, my shoulders were too locked. My arms were too tight. Say what, I hear you ask? Loose arms, yes, it’s a Zouk dancing thing, and something I used to obsess about, before people started dying from pathogenic air. I found that pathogenic air helped me gain some much needed social dancing perspective.
The reentry began for me in November in a secretive, private way. A friend from dancing was having a birthday and invited seven other people to gather and dance. Seven was more people than I had been in physical proximity to in as many months. The thought was intoxicating — and socially fraught in a new, raw, way. I found my temptation-laden mind assessing each of my friend’s attitudes to risk. Those who were in couples (like me), I presumed to be more reliable. They had each other after all, so I believed them when they said, like I said, that they and their partner had been staying in. But those who lived alone — oh, I could not have endured the isolation they faced. So I doubted that they had. This first step back towards the swirl of society suddenly felt wobbly with my sympathetic fear. How could I say I didn’t take them at their word, that “being careful” in their world was not the same as in mine? In long Whatsapp messages, the party invitees listed the places they had been. Supermarket. CVS. One woman had been working on site, filming something for a client, but (she assured us) everyone wore N95 masks the entire time. Collectively, we skirted awkward conversations with emojis and lots of hedging: “I’m comfortable with whatever the group decides” and “I heard that there was a little get together recently — anyone know anything about that?” In a democratic consensus, we agreed to all be tested 72 hours beforehand, at most — and then we all promised to not leave our houses. Except for those who had to work. Because surely that was excessive, to cancel a job or pass up a shift just for peace of mind at a little social dancing do?
The morning of the party, I woke up and scanned the screenshots of COVID tests in our Facebook chat. They were negative, all negative — except for one person. Someone hadn’t posted. Why would they do that? Should I ask about it? No — that seemed a bit passive aggressive. Should I just wait? I live in Los Angeles. If I don’t leave when traffic is good I may die from old age before my Uber clears the 101. Inside, I felt my urge to dance raise its head like a thirsty serpent beside a lake. I really, really wanted to go to this party — and I had been tested! I was clean! I was itchy, hot, and irritated by my own inability to just type out my enquiry: “Yo, Mr Pink, where is your result?” Instead I called the birthday-friend. “Happy birthday!” I said “Has so-and-so been tested?” Apparently they had. They’d sent the result directly to her. So breathing a sigh of internal relief, I gathered up my hand sanitizer and keys. Then — a sudden thought. I didn’t ask about the result. If it was anything questionable, she would have told me, I’m sure. She would have told me right? Now I’m doubting everyone, and doubting myself. Here I was, seduced by the promise of sociality and shared movement, putting myself and others at risk. I had been shopping at Wholefoods three days ago; if I had contracted COVID beside the organic lemons, the test may not have detected it. I wouldn’t know that I was a walking biological weapon before I breathed into someone else’s face and it was all too late!
By the end of the day, all eight of us gathered for the party. We put on music, and hugged each other. We danced, and it felt incredible. I didn’t care about my shoulders or the looseness of my arms. We were together and alive and still mostly employed. And we were dancing — what more could we want! That night was, and remains, a golden 2020 memory, a highlight of the year. Something that I used to do three times a week had been taken away from me and its gleam renewed, reinstated in a smaller, more intimate and more intensely felt way. That night, I wasn’t breathing into the faces of strangers, but the faces of friends who, in that moment, it was worth risking death just to see. We floated away from the party on a high. Then the next morning came. And I saw a WhatsApp in a group chat. “Hey so-and-so (someone who wasn’t at the party wrote), you forgot your sunglasses when we danced at mine two days ago”. Two days ago? Like the day before the party I just attended? Didn’t we agree to self-isolate with Netflix and Uber Eats, not meet up for dance practice with a whole other body, whose activities and potential exposures had not been discussed and agreed upon by the Democratic People’s Republic of COVID-safe Dance Party Organising? There was a flurry of messages. Yes so-and-so had met up for practice but it was days ago, before the test, and they were dance partners anyway and not seeing anyone aside from each other, they were both really careful and always wore masks…I was too tired of this. Too tired of worrying and judging and then trying not to judge. Who I was to have an opinion? I’m not an epidemiologist or a risk analyst. I’m a person who believes in the five-second-rule and will definitely eat things off the floor.
The virus however does not care if we judge. It does not skip over those who really could not endure being alone for a second longer, or those who have to work outside the house, or those who faithfully wear their mask but are surrounded by customers or family members who do not. I had reentered into a world where my friends and I could dance each other to death, and I needed more than emojis to talk about these risks.
On that morning after my first wonderful reentry into the world of social dance, I longed for the words to talk a-morally about exposure and risk. “It’s not that I don’t like you. I just don’t want to die. So please tell me every single place that you have recently been, and I will tell you in return, and list all the people I have seen”.
So gone are the days of breathing onto strangers. Gone are the times when I would know how you smelt and the sway of your hips, but I wouldn’t know your name and you wouldn’t know mine. The social dancing of today is a network of friends, still fumbling with awkward conversations about vaccination status and breakthrough infections. Still skirting around the question of whether or not we could make each other sick. From my moment of reentry, I came away with much that I want to improve upon and learn. And, I came away with the sweetness of a memory of a time when I immersed myself in the closeness of others and just allowed myself to breathe. Onto someone else’s face. And it was wonderful.
