This morning Dr Roo and I got to the big Northern Ireland tent at the Folklife Festival just as the nice lady was starting to teach a new dance. We did it, it was fun - ok, it was a disaster, we were in the idiot set - and it ended, and I was like, ok then, next reel! But no: the lady said, now we're handing it off to Nisha! Turns out the nice Indian lady I'd seen hanging around was not a Smithsonian staffer, as I'd assumed, but one of the presenters. (Ohhhh, they have immigration in Northern Ireland, too....)
She was teaching "Bollywood dancing." Apparently it's all the rage in Northern Ireland these days. She taught us complete routines to two Bollywood songs on a CD. We did lots of shimmying and a little salsa and several moves that involved making our hands into peacocks that talked to each other. She said things like "shake your bum!" and "do yous want to do some more?" It was really, really not what I expected from a dance demonstration representing Northern Ireland, and it was awesome. If somewhat embarrassing - there was a whole audience watching.
I totally did something to my hip on one of the bum-shaking moves. I'm just not that funky in my daily life. I had to take major NSAIDs when I got home.
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4 comments:
Oh, man, my timing must have been terrible. I went there yesterday psyched to see Irish dancing, but when I got to the big tent it was just a bunch of little kids skipping around in a circle with their parents. At least I heard some good music.
If you want to learn Irish (or Bollywood) dancing, look for the dance demonstration or whatever it's called on the schedule. They're just teaching basic stuff, though - I haven't seen any, like, Riverdance-style Irish dancing, though. Although during the later demonstration yesterday, there were these two women in my set who had clearly taken Irish dancing and did all the steps right and made the rest of us look bad.
You see? And you thought "Shake it 'til you break it" was just a clever turn of phrase and not an actual warning of pending ass-breakage, hm?
Now you know.
FUN! Roxy and I are going to try to go to the festival this Friday.
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