When was the last time you danced? Disco, hiphop, the two-step? This fall, after a long absence from the stage (thanks, COVID), I decided it was time to get back into the swing and, well, swing. I auditioned for a musical set to start early next year, but then a production called Dare to Dance: Together Again caught my attention.
The Seattle nonprofit Dare to Dance brings adults of all ages and abilities together to move their feet to the music. Choreographers create original works, ranging from Afro-Cuban to tap to modern. No auditions are necessary. All one needs to do is sign up for the dance(s) that are of interest, attend weekly rehearsals, and then show up to perform them with whatever group of people constitute your dance tribe. This year marked the 11th that Dare to Dance set foot on local stages, including a virtual performance last year.
I must admit I had a few ulterior motives. First, after surviving the last few dire years, my body wanted to sing and dance in a musical. I wanted to be in a happy place and convey that feeling to an audience. Second, I come from a long line of hoofers. My grandmother, great aunt, and their brothers were tap dancers on the amateur vaudeville circuit in northeast Ohio in the early part of the last century. So, dance is in my DNA.
I still had my old black tap shoes from a class I took when I was 18 years old, but they looked shabby and were starting to fall apart. I had the taps removed for a summer job as a waiter the year I graduated from college, and so would need to invest in new ones and pay to have them reattached. I decided to buy a new pair at Centerstage Dance Shop in the University District. Due to my delaying my decision and supply chain issues, the shoes arrived just three weeks before the performance.
Removing them from the box and slipping them on transported me back to another time. I felt as if I was reconnecting with my ancestral roots, and the sound of the metal on the bottom of my shoes as I grazed the wooden floor brought back memories of my beloved great aunt Loretta, La-La for short. Whenever my parents and I visited La-La, she would break into a soft-shoe. Her warmth and love of dance endeared her to me and left a lasting, joyful impression.
Last week I awoke to an NPR report marking the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking Free to Be, You and Me. The award-winning album and children's book were released in November of 1972, followed two years later by a television special that won an Emmy and Peabody Award. The actress Marlo Thomas, of That Girl fame, spearheaded all these projects as a way of challenging gender stereotypes and saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and finding our own identity separate from the feminine-masculine dichotomy.
I often marvel at how lucky I am to have grown up in a time when women and men were challenging rigid definitions about what it means to be male or female. Who says any one gender has a lock on cooking, knitting, playing a sport, or fixing a broken dishwasher? As a boy — a good little Gay boy — I loved to sing, dance, recite stories, and rearrange the furniture. I sucked at basketball, though I played a mean game of tennis. I was creative. And that was encouraged by my mom, in addition to society at large.
Getting in touch with my dancing roots made me appreciate my forebears, those bachelor great uncles, who danced with my grandmother and great aunt. I've often wondered, were they Gay? I'll never know the answer, though I have faded pictures of them from the 1910s and '20s in all their handsomeness.
After the horrific shootings in Colorado Springs, I am grateful that our community, despite tragedy, is a resilient one. We are fighters. We refuse to cower. I reach back to my own history for inspiration that, despite the challenges of life, we still have a choice. We no longer need to hide. Or be afraid of crying, or playing with dolls. Or deciding we'd rather go by our own personal pronouns without regard to our biological origin. Like me, we can choose to dance.
Jack Hilovsky is an author, actor, and blogger who has made his home in Seattle since 1986. His first book RJ, Farrah and Me: A Young Man's Gay Odyssey from the Inside Out was published in June 2022. It can be found at Madison Books, Nook & Cranny, and University Bookstore, among other local booksellers.