This is a serious city, and the people in it are serious. Serious about their work. Serious about their apartments. Serious about getting to the train. People walk with purpose here, and anyone left lollygagging through midtown is either mowed down or evangelized. I knew all of this prior to moving here, but even so, nothing prepared me for the seriousness that is 80s dance night.
I thought I had been prepping my entire life for an event like this, but even I (a girl who spent her formative years rehearsing choreography to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl”) was a mere amateur compared to the superfreaks who gathered in the east village that night. When my friends Holly, Mallory and I arrived at the Pyramid club, the place was only half full. Most were grouped up front at the bar, and although a drink or two was of necessity (so we thought) to make our dancing debut, the smoke machines and compelling sounds of Human League drew us quickly toward the back of the club.
We arrived early enough in the night to witness what I now call “the core group” — the committed dancers who exist in their own dimension and find themselves completely lost in movement and time. Engrossed as they were, the core group seemed to forget that a girl in the third dimension holding a beverage is not only quite real, but can spill said beverage and register pain when knocked from behind. I clearly had two choices: live that night as a wall flower and risk severe injury OR join the core group and risk severe injury. Luckily I had already made this choice at the age of seven, when I first choreographed a lyrical dance to Janet’s “Let’s Wait Awhile.” It was time to move onto the floor and scope out the individuals who made up our new tribe. Frightening at first and inspiring ten minutes later, the core group consisted of everyone and everything you might expect from devoted 80s dancers. As Holly, Mallory and I timidly began swaying and looking around, the smoke cleared and faces began to emerge through the fog.
The first dancer to change my life that night was a man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bill Gates. Uniformed in a black suit with shiny lapels, I immediately took notice of his intensity. Whether it was his moves or the pained expression he wore that first drew me in I can’t be sure, but I could not pull my gaze away from this man. Bill moved with an effortless fluidity that captivated me and several other onlookers...then suddenly, his smoothness was interrupted by a full-body spasm, and Bill doubled over as if someone (or perhaps everyone) had knocked the wind out of him. Throwing his arms out wide and resurfacing from the blow, Bill’s face told the sad story of a man beaten down by society — and the only feasible cure seemed to be throwing his head back and nodding as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Michael Jackson sang over us, and it was clear that the kid was not Bill's son, and he was offended that anyone might think so.
I realized this was going to be an incredible night, and I celebrated with a few consecutive 360-degree twirls. When my eyes re-focused, I spotted my next muse: the Lady in Red. Red hair, red dress, red gloves. Despite the bold statement of her appearance, LIR drifted more subtly onto the scene, moving in her own direction against the wall behind Bill Gates. I van-halen-jumped my way around Bill to get a closer look, and I saw LIR marching in place with jazz hands above her head. In contrast to Bill, LIR smiled cheerfully at no one in particular. Her eyes often followed the movement of either her hands or her legs, depending on her head placement. I quickly adopted a few of her moves myself and turned to face Holly and Mallory with a new confidence. I found that all of us had gained strength from the core group, and as the 80s planets continued to align for us, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” came on. We couldn’t have stopped if we tried.
With no exchange of words, our sub-group naturally began to drift toward the stage at the back of the room. On our way, we encountered our first couple. The woman, draped in black pleather, leapt gracefully around her date in hasty, circular motions. Had they not very clearly been together, I would have thought the man had accidentally wandered into the club thinking it was his daughter’s middle school volleyball game. Wearing pleated dockers and a braided belt, this man moved astonishingly well and even managed what looked like a backward version of the running man. Soft Cell jammed in the background, and the couple intensely held each other’s gaze as Pleather circled Dockers in perfect alignment with his arm, which was extended and moving so as to represent a sprinkler. It came as no surprise when the man turned toward me, gyrated up in his khakis and squawked in my face like a bird. My response? A flap of my own wings followed by a shimmy down into a lunge. He responded with a solemn nod, and that was all I needed to make my way directly toward the stage.
By now I had foregone all traces of irony and fully embraced these people as my own. I felt liberated by the seriousness with which the core group approached the 80s, and I concentrated on my dance moves with the mirrored respect of those around me. It was amazing how positive the collective energy of the room was, so imagine our surprise when Bill Gates rolled past us on the floor, clearly in a fist fight with another dancer. The group simultaneously paused to watch as Bill smacked a guy wearing a Led Zeppelin tank top across the face. “Hey hey hey!” Mallory yelled toward the men, but her intervention was unnecessary. A tiny man, no bigger than Data from The Goonies, hopped from the stage to break up the dispute. This was clearly the moment he had been waiting for backstage, and his speedy success at pulling the men a part shocked us all. Led Zeppelin shouted one last insult at Bill Gates, and Data removed Bill from the party. The dancing immediately resumed. It was so…80s.
My lifelong passion for spastic dancing fully emerged when the DJ (finally) played Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” Holly, Mallory and I had officially made it to the foot of the stage, and our talents were on full display for the room. Because we were right next to a speaker and engulfed in smoke, I didn’t notice until it was too late that the three of us had been surrounded by Spanish men. They moved in quickly, giving us almost no time to navigate an escape. Mine was a blur of spiked hair and large white teeth, and I could barely make out his attempts at conversation. “I come to you from Spain! You live in here!? New York?!” Refusing to be distracted from my moves, I nodded as I leveraged his upper body to do a side kick. He continued to try and talk, and I grew annoyed that he couldn’t see how serious this was. This was not the venue for random conversation. This was Depeche Mode’s “A Question of Time.” And his had run out. “I’m gonna go blahdiblah!” I yelled and pointed toward the bar. He yelled back something equally incoherent, and I moved quickly through the crowd so as to lose this guy. Halfway through the room, I realized that I wasn’t so much losing the Spaniard as I was leaving him for Holly to deal with. But this was the 80s! I’d make it up to her later with a makeover montage in the likeness of Ami Dolenz in She's Out of Control.
I decided to break from dancing long enough to use the restroom, and for no reason I recall, I assumed the bathroom to be downstairs. I followed a couple of guys down a dark staircase, and when reaching the basement floor, I encountered not a ladies' room, but rather a sub-party of goth dancers jumping up and down to dark wave electro music. So many questions would later register in my head regarding these facts, but at the time it seemed completely normal for dancers of gothic nature to be partying in the same space as dancers whirling around to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” I turned to go back upstairs but stopped when I noticed a guy (wearing only a plaid skirt) pointing at me. Given my recent experience upstairs, I recognized this gesture to mean "let's dance" in core group lingo. My response was immediate, and plaid-skirt-guy ushered me to the dance floor. How many times in life would I have the chance to dance with a bald, half-naked man in the basement of a Manhattan club? "It's the 80s!" I told myself and made a mental note to ask him how he went about perfecting his liquid eyeliner.
For people who have a penchant for non-conformism, gothic dancers sure do enjoy moving in unison. In fact, it was difficult to pull out one individual from the crowd to evaluate. I looked back at Plaid Guy and shouted over the blaring sound "what band is this?!" "Potomac Biter!" he yelled. (I would later research this and find that I think he actually said Atomic Spider). "They're really schnapps token!" he told me. I nodded and pretended that I understood what he said. I began to long for upstairs. It's not that I don't appreciate industrial rock or that uniform sway-stomping (my own term) isn't fun. I found that I actually have a knack for gothic movement, but I lacked the heart. Potomac Biter didn't inspire me in the same way that Belinda Carlilse always could. I looked at the solemn faces around me and decided to leave the basement for good. With a final fist pump toward my new friend, I said goodbye to the melancholy dancers and went back upstairs in time to hear Prince's "When Doves Cry." I walked with purpose back to the front. It was time to get serious.
Side note:
Bliss and I have officially been visited FOUR times now...first by Brenda back in August, then the Waden clan, then Holly came in from Illinois, and most recently, Carrie and Stacy came in town! All of the visits were amazing, and if you don't see your name on that list, go ahead and book your ticket please.
I thought I had been prepping my entire life for an event like this, but even I (a girl who spent her formative years rehearsing choreography to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl”) was a mere amateur compared to the superfreaks who gathered in the east village that night. When my friends Holly, Mallory and I arrived at the Pyramid club, the place was only half full. Most were grouped up front at the bar, and although a drink or two was of necessity (so we thought) to make our dancing debut, the smoke machines and compelling sounds of Human League drew us quickly toward the back of the club.
We arrived early enough in the night to witness what I now call “the core group” — the committed dancers who exist in their own dimension and find themselves completely lost in movement and time. Engrossed as they were, the core group seemed to forget that a girl in the third dimension holding a beverage is not only quite real, but can spill said beverage and register pain when knocked from behind. I clearly had two choices: live that night as a wall flower and risk severe injury OR join the core group and risk severe injury. Luckily I had already made this choice at the age of seven, when I first choreographed a lyrical dance to Janet’s “Let’s Wait Awhile.” It was time to move onto the floor and scope out the individuals who made up our new tribe. Frightening at first and inspiring ten minutes later, the core group consisted of everyone and everything you might expect from devoted 80s dancers. As Holly, Mallory and I timidly began swaying and looking around, the smoke cleared and faces began to emerge through the fog.
The first dancer to change my life that night was a man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bill Gates. Uniformed in a black suit with shiny lapels, I immediately took notice of his intensity. Whether it was his moves or the pained expression he wore that first drew me in I can’t be sure, but I could not pull my gaze away from this man. Bill moved with an effortless fluidity that captivated me and several other onlookers...then suddenly, his smoothness was interrupted by a full-body spasm, and Bill doubled over as if someone (or perhaps everyone) had knocked the wind out of him. Throwing his arms out wide and resurfacing from the blow, Bill’s face told the sad story of a man beaten down by society — and the only feasible cure seemed to be throwing his head back and nodding as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Michael Jackson sang over us, and it was clear that the kid was not Bill's son, and he was offended that anyone might think so.
I realized this was going to be an incredible night, and I celebrated with a few consecutive 360-degree twirls. When my eyes re-focused, I spotted my next muse: the Lady in Red. Red hair, red dress, red gloves. Despite the bold statement of her appearance, LIR drifted more subtly onto the scene, moving in her own direction against the wall behind Bill Gates. I van-halen-jumped my way around Bill to get a closer look, and I saw LIR marching in place with jazz hands above her head. In contrast to Bill, LIR smiled cheerfully at no one in particular. Her eyes often followed the movement of either her hands or her legs, depending on her head placement. I quickly adopted a few of her moves myself and turned to face Holly and Mallory with a new confidence. I found that all of us had gained strength from the core group, and as the 80s planets continued to align for us, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” came on. We couldn’t have stopped if we tried.
With no exchange of words, our sub-group naturally began to drift toward the stage at the back of the room. On our way, we encountered our first couple. The woman, draped in black pleather, leapt gracefully around her date in hasty, circular motions. Had they not very clearly been together, I would have thought the man had accidentally wandered into the club thinking it was his daughter’s middle school volleyball game. Wearing pleated dockers and a braided belt, this man moved astonishingly well and even managed what looked like a backward version of the running man. Soft Cell jammed in the background, and the couple intensely held each other’s gaze as Pleather circled Dockers in perfect alignment with his arm, which was extended and moving so as to represent a sprinkler. It came as no surprise when the man turned toward me, gyrated up in his khakis and squawked in my face like a bird. My response? A flap of my own wings followed by a shimmy down into a lunge. He responded with a solemn nod, and that was all I needed to make my way directly toward the stage.
By now I had foregone all traces of irony and fully embraced these people as my own. I felt liberated by the seriousness with which the core group approached the 80s, and I concentrated on my dance moves with the mirrored respect of those around me. It was amazing how positive the collective energy of the room was, so imagine our surprise when Bill Gates rolled past us on the floor, clearly in a fist fight with another dancer. The group simultaneously paused to watch as Bill smacked a guy wearing a Led Zeppelin tank top across the face. “Hey hey hey!” Mallory yelled toward the men, but her intervention was unnecessary. A tiny man, no bigger than Data from The Goonies, hopped from the stage to break up the dispute. This was clearly the moment he had been waiting for backstage, and his speedy success at pulling the men a part shocked us all. Led Zeppelin shouted one last insult at Bill Gates, and Data removed Bill from the party. The dancing immediately resumed. It was so…80s.
My lifelong passion for spastic dancing fully emerged when the DJ (finally) played Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” Holly, Mallory and I had officially made it to the foot of the stage, and our talents were on full display for the room. Because we were right next to a speaker and engulfed in smoke, I didn’t notice until it was too late that the three of us had been surrounded by Spanish men. They moved in quickly, giving us almost no time to navigate an escape. Mine was a blur of spiked hair and large white teeth, and I could barely make out his attempts at conversation. “I come to you from Spain! You live in here!? New York?!” Refusing to be distracted from my moves, I nodded as I leveraged his upper body to do a side kick. He continued to try and talk, and I grew annoyed that he couldn’t see how serious this was. This was not the venue for random conversation. This was Depeche Mode’s “A Question of Time.” And his had run out. “I’m gonna go blahdiblah!” I yelled and pointed toward the bar. He yelled back something equally incoherent, and I moved quickly through the crowd so as to lose this guy. Halfway through the room, I realized that I wasn’t so much losing the Spaniard as I was leaving him for Holly to deal with. But this was the 80s! I’d make it up to her later with a makeover montage in the likeness of Ami Dolenz in She's Out of Control.
I decided to break from dancing long enough to use the restroom, and for no reason I recall, I assumed the bathroom to be downstairs. I followed a couple of guys down a dark staircase, and when reaching the basement floor, I encountered not a ladies' room, but rather a sub-party of goth dancers jumping up and down to dark wave electro music. So many questions would later register in my head regarding these facts, but at the time it seemed completely normal for dancers of gothic nature to be partying in the same space as dancers whirling around to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” I turned to go back upstairs but stopped when I noticed a guy (wearing only a plaid skirt) pointing at me. Given my recent experience upstairs, I recognized this gesture to mean "let's dance" in core group lingo. My response was immediate, and plaid-skirt-guy ushered me to the dance floor. How many times in life would I have the chance to dance with a bald, half-naked man in the basement of a Manhattan club? "It's the 80s!" I told myself and made a mental note to ask him how he went about perfecting his liquid eyeliner.
For people who have a penchant for non-conformism, gothic dancers sure do enjoy moving in unison. In fact, it was difficult to pull out one individual from the crowd to evaluate. I looked back at Plaid Guy and shouted over the blaring sound "what band is this?!" "Potomac Biter!" he yelled. (I would later research this and find that I think he actually said Atomic Spider). "They're really schnapps token!" he told me. I nodded and pretended that I understood what he said. I began to long for upstairs. It's not that I don't appreciate industrial rock or that uniform sway-stomping (my own term) isn't fun. I found that I actually have a knack for gothic movement, but I lacked the heart. Potomac Biter didn't inspire me in the same way that Belinda Carlilse always could. I looked at the solemn faces around me and decided to leave the basement for good. With a final fist pump toward my new friend, I said goodbye to the melancholy dancers and went back upstairs in time to hear Prince's "When Doves Cry." I walked with purpose back to the front. It was time to get serious.
Side note:
Bliss and I have officially been visited FOUR times now...first by Brenda back in August, then the Waden clan, then Holly came in from Illinois, and most recently, Carrie and Stacy came in town! All of the visits were amazing, and if you don't see your name on that list, go ahead and book your ticket please.
oh, trace...how i look forward to your posts!! :) One thing you'll have to promise...if my name appears on the list (and it will!), my visit must include a trip to 80s dance night!!
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