Let’s dance

Louise Carolin overcomes a life-time fear of looking stupid in public by returning to the scene of a childhood humiliation

As traumatic experiences go, it was minor, but I have never recovered from having to go topless to ‘music and movement’ class when I was eight. I knew Tuesdays were vest days, but I forgot mine, so when Miss Davies told us to strip to our vests and pants and line up by the door, my stomach froze. I dawdled so long that I was left behind when my class filed out, and had to leg it, bare-chested and alone, through the next-door classroom of older kids.

Their derisive laughter rings loud in my ears as I wake in a muck-sweat the night before my first five rhythms class. In my nightmare I’m self-consciously naked in a bright, cold hall, surrounded by cavorting adults, fully-clothed.

Five rhythms dance is as close to the music and movement classes of my childhood as I’m likely to get outside a bad dream. Developed in the 1960s on the basis that rhythm is the key to human life and dance can heal the body and the spirit, it is a kind of informal dance therapy that is rapidly gaining popularity.

According to the web site of founder Gabrielle Roth, ‘The five rhythms are states of being. They are a map to everywhere we want to go, on all planes of consciousness – inner and outer, forward and back, physical, emotional and intellectual. They are markers on the way back to a real self, a vulnerable, wild, passionate, instinctive self.’

It’s fair to say that this is a vision that fills me with dread. What will a class involve? Will I be expected to don a leotard and let loose my hair, like the scarily expressive ladies pictured on Roth’s web site? I am a devoted and confident dancer but my preferred setting is the reassuringly uptight London mod underground, where the proscribed range of movements is as narrow as the cut of our tailor-made suits.

There are gay five rhythms sessions in London but I choose a mixed class run by a friend, Jane, who has been an accredited teacher since 2001. I have spent years side-stepping her invitations to join her for a dance, fearing legions of hippies and a soundtrack of Peruvian pipe music. Jane cackles with glee when I ring to invite myself along to her Sunday night session at an East London community centre and reassures me that tracky bottoms and a T-shirt will be suitable garb.

The room is vast, bright and high-ceilinged with a pale wooden floor. While Jane fiddles with her CD decks, I watch the group of about ten men and women start to arrive. ‘Use this time to stretch and prepare for your practice,’ calls Jane over her shoulder. Half the group drop to the floor and adopt yoga poses. I gingerly touch my toes.

Gradually the music picks up pace. Everyone is here now. Jane plays a nice bit of 60s R&B that sounds like something I’d dance to at a mod club. It is a challenge not to do exactly what I would do there. ‘We’re going to work through the body, concentrating on different parts,’ instructs Jane. ‘ Follow the movement, whether it’s big or small. Fingers!’ I am too embarrassed to look at anyone else. I have no idea what I’m doing. I splay my fingers quickly, like my cat’s paw when she stretches in the morning, and the thought of her is comforting.

The music changes again and again and we work through elbows, shoulders, spine, head, hips, knees and feet. Gradually I dare to look around and notice the other dancers, some ebulliently expressive, others quiet and slow. A man with pigtails is hopping joyfully around the room like a rabbit; a tall black woman sways with an elegant beat. I find I am enjoying myself as much as I would in a club, if not more so, since nobody is monitoring my decision to move in any way I please. Even though much of the music is alien to my personal playlist, it is thrilling to let myself be carried along by the energy of the wave. Jane takes us through the ‘five rhythms’: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, stillness. I am utterly unaware that my energy is being expertly channelled, only that I could not stop or step out of the dance for a moment longer than it takes me to fetch a glass of water. The longer we dance, the more confident I become – mentally as well as physically. Even my worst-case scenario - a circle in which each dancer must take a turn – turns out be less than the complete mortification I expected.

When the class ends I’m sweat-soaked, exhausted and elated. Jane calls us into a circle to debrief. ‘I’ve seen things I’ve never seen in a class before,’ she smiles. ‘I saw air guitar this evening!’ Oops – that was me, getting carried away to the Kinks.

Well, she better get used to it. I might be coming back.

www.5rhythms-janebelshaw.com/

(This article appeared in DIVA magazine, September 2008)