It was seven o’clock. I was at Kings Cross station. I had just deposited my parents on a train to Lincoln, their home city. I looked at my phone. My eyes boggled: the next group was entitled ‘Womb wisdom keepers’ and had the tag line ‘supporting your feminine nature’. Their event helped participants to access their ‘unique body intelligence’ so they could ‘enjoy being a woman’. If there was ever a Meetup where I needed to apply the inappropriate Meetup rule then this was the one. I decided to ‘bank’ ‘womb wisdom keepers’ and ask the organiser if I could come along the next time they had a meeting.
The next Meetup was called ‘The London Wine, Dining and Travel Meetup’ and was a ‘Rioja Reserva Masterclass’. I saw that you had to register and pay well in advance. Plus, there was a substantial waiting list of seventeen people.
The third group was advertising an event called ‘Let’s Ceroc’. It had a short and sweet summary: ‘Come and join us in Kensington. No experience necessary - this is an easier dance for beginners than salsa (well, in my opinion anyway!) There's no footwork for a start. No partner necessary either. They rotate round so everyone dances with everyone else.’ I had no idea what Ceroc was other than it was, clearly, some kind of dancing.
I wondered for a moment: did I need a sparkly spandex outfit? Would I be able to get away with an office shirt, a pair of jeans and some scruffy shoes that could vaguely pass as trainers? There was no question to answer; I was going to Baden Powell House, South Kensington.
‘Hello… are you a part of the group?’ I asked woman in her forties, who was loitering around the entrance of what turned out to be an upmarket looking scout hostel and conference centre. Baden Powell house had been named in honour of the founder of the scouting movement. I had distant memories of visiting the building decades ago with an ex-girlfriend who needed to buy a set of woggles.
I introduced myself to Kerri who, like me, had never been to the ‘Salsa and Ceroc friends’ group before. We were soon joined by our organiser, Angela, who was also in her mid-forties. I confessed to Angela that I had never been before.
‘It’s great fun! You’ll love it. It is harder for the men, though; you’ve got to do the leading’ she said, before starting to laugh. Within ten minutes, we had been joined by six other people, most of whom knew what Ceroc was.
‘What happens is that they will split us into groups; those who have been here before, and those who are new, and they will go through everything step by step. Don’t look so worried! You’ll be fine!’
Angela had recently moved to London from Nottingham. She started the group because she wanted to go to some dance nights, but felt that it was more fun to go with other people than to go alone.
With everyone assembled, we went inside.
‘Are you new?’
I was directed to a stand where I gave over some money in exchange for an application form and a ‘membership card’. With my dues paid, I tentatively stepped out into a darkened room, which turned out to be an expansive dance hall.
Pop music blared out from a substantial set of speakers and I saw two people dancing alone on a massive stage. As people were piling in through the entrance, I acquired a feeling of profound dread. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to go home.
Five minutes later, an annoyingly cheerful male dance trainer, who wore a tight fitting top and a microphone headset walked onto the stage. I hated him. He was young, tall, toned and had all his hair. He asked the men to create three long lines, and it became immediately clear that women substantially outnumbered the men. My feeling of dread deepened: this would mean that I would have to do more dancing.
‘We’re going to do some steps, really slowly, and when we’ve mastered these, we’re going to do some more. Don’t worry if you’re new, we’re going to go through everything time and time again. Men, just follow what I’m doing on stage; make sure that you’re standing on the right side of the line.’ I turned to look toward the stage. I was standing on the wrong side.
‘Okay, with your partner in front of you, move you left foot back, so you feel the balls of your feet. You with me? Follow me. And then move your right foot back. That’s it; that’s the basic step.’ We repeated moving two feet for a few seconds. It was more difficult than it sounded. 'Now, ladies, move five men along’. My dance partner suddenly disappeared. Four women flashed before my eyes, before I was confronted with my new partner.
‘Now, gentlemen, what you’ve got to do is signify to the lady that you are offering her your hand. Ladies, you’re going to take the gentleman’s hand. Gentlemen, just let the lady perch onto your hand, don’t hold onto it, because she’s going to let go of it very soon’. This seemed to me to be a very confusing instruction, but I went along with it. We did more stepping about. I offered my hands to ladies, and ladies perched onto it.
‘The next thing we’re going to do is a turn. Using your hand, you push the lady away, and she’ll take this as a direction, and the lady will turn, like this, and then when the turn is done, you’ve then got to turn yourself.’ I found it difficult to look at the stage, do my steps, offer a perch and turn all at the same time.
‘You’ll then find that you’ve swapped sides, then there’s another turn, and then that means that we’re ready to do the hip-rub, where you will push the lady away and it will become a slingshot, and this will end in another turn, and the lady will end up facing where we started. Okay! Let’s give that a go: step, step, hand, push, turn, turn, shoulder, rub, slingshot, turn, step!’ I had no idea what was going on. I wanted to punch the dance instructor.
‘Don’t worry! You’ll get the hang of it!’ said my new partner, who was a tall blonde woman who was also in her forties. ‘Look, we can go through it slowly; I’m a taxi dancer’. A taxi dancer turned out to be someone who was paid by the dance company to help beginners, those people who hadn't been for a while, or the profoundly incompetent. During our session there were two ‘taxi dancers’: one woman, one man. I felt lucky; I had inadvertently discovered a taxi dancer who was having ‘a night off’. After being reminded of the step bit, the turn and the hip-rub, I was released from the control of the taxi dancer and was confronted with a dour German woman who had an over inflated expectation of my ability to lead.
‘How you doing?’ It was Angela, the Meetup leader, who was perching on the hands of a man who was standing next to me.
‘I hate it. I want to go home’ I replied flatly. Angela began to laugh. Moments later, she was told to ‘move along’, to find another partner.
After twenty minute of complete confusion that was loosely set to music, it was time to split into two groups. The novices, who had completed fewer than eight sessions, had to go down stairs, whilst the ‘intermediates or experts’ were allowed to dance the night away in the main hall.
We were ushered into a room where we were taken through all the steps again by the pair of taxi dancers. The male taxi, mid forties, demonstrated the steps with a help from a female taxi, mid sixties.
‘When you get familiar with the step, hand, push and turn, followed by the man doing the half turn, you can then perhaps move onto the shoulder and hip movement. Ladies, when you do the turn, it’s good to wipe the sweat off your hand by running it over the back of the gentleman, since this tells your man where you are, and when you’re back together, you can do something like this!’ The taxi dancers gyrated at the front of the room. I had no idea what they were doing.
‘Hold on!’ I complained. ‘Go slower!’ I could no longer contain my sense of frustration and physical ineptitude. Fellow ‘dancers’ laughed at my mild protest.
‘You’ll get used to it! It’ll become second nature’ replied the male taxi, who had acquired an air of profound smugness.
We gave it a go and I discovered that I had forgotten everything. I had even forgotten the bit where you moved your left foot and then your right foot backwards. I couldn’t make sense of anything the taxi man was saying or demonstrating. It was as if my sense of discomfort had hijacked my ability to connect my brain to my body.
After half an hour, we returned to the main hall where we were confronted with a mass of moving, jiving bodies. I edged my way to the corner of the room, where I found a seat. Just as I had sat down, I was asked to dance by the German woman. I gracefully accepted, but within seconds, I realised I had made a mistake. Even though neither of us had any idea what was going on, my partner made it known that I was failing as a man: my moves were being criticised. I was confused, there was no connection between myself and my dance partner, and within two minutes, neither myself nor my masculinity could take any more; I went to ‘get a drink of water’ and found a place to sulk. My partner looked at me with an expression of disappointed contempt.
I watched the dancing. I was impressed. One woman, who was in her mid forties was being thrown on the floor and then was scooped up by a man, who was also in his mid forties; it was a move that was practised by a number of other couples. I didn’t recognise any of the moves between the ‘scooping’ and ‘throwing’ actions; clearly there was an extensive vocabulary of moves that extended beyond the simple hip-rub and the left-right foot reverse.
After a brief dalliance with the sixty year old taxi dancer, I got chatting with Angela. She was easy to talk to; we talked about groups, work, relationship difficulties, drinking, and the challenges of living in London. After one final dance with Angela, in which I had abandoned any hope of remembering any Ceroc move, it was time to go home. It was a quarter to eleven.
‘Which way to the Natural History Museum?’ I asked Angela when we were on the street. She pointed towards a street that I didn’t recognise. I crossed the road, suddenly figured out where I was, and then started to walk towards South Kensington tube station.
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