Dance Class

Elizabeth and I decked out to dance

“Let’s go see how much it is.” Elizabeth encouraged. We had been walking in the center and she had been talking about taking dance class. We saw a sign for the Marinera studio and had stood there talking about how cool it would be if we began learning this traditional dance of Peru. So we asked and it only cost five soles per class. That is about equal to two and a half dollars.

  

Reasons of why we joined the class were that we needed a hobby to get out of the house, we would meet new people, and we would integrate more into the culture of Peru. Great reasons, Right? What ever the reasons, we jumped in on it. At first I was unsure, because I had never done anything like it before, but after a month of lesions, I really did enjoy it. March second we had our first dance recital. We hoped we wouldn’t falter in front of all those Peruvians and what a disaster it would have been if we would have had to stop in the middle to put our hands up in the air as if to say, ”I don’t know what I’m suppose to do next”.

My recital dance partner

We stood in our dresses waiting for our turn. Our nerves were on edge and to top it off, with an unusual clap of thunder and heavy rain (well unusual and heavy for Tacna, Peru) our hair was frizzy and everything else wet. A little girl had slipped on the court in the middle of her recital, which really made us all the more nervous. The rain stopped and a rainbow revealed itself in the sky above the court (another miracle for Tacna, Peru). The court had just enough time to dry as we began our recitals.
 Different things ran through my head as I danced: smile, hips, legs, dress, etc.(There is a lot to remember) but we finished, both proud of what we had accomplished.

I debated for the longest time if I should continue, and I have decided that this hobby is needed and something I really enjoy. I just bought a skirt this week and in two more months of classes I could begin to get good at it.

Our Mariner Dance Fan club

So I have continues the dance classes. I would like to think I have gotten much better at it. Once my dance instructor was teaching me how to walk in the first part of the song. Well its not a walk. It is a strut, that thing that girls to to get a mans attention while walking down the street. She starts moving her hips, shoulders, and  head a seductive way while walking. So my dance instructor notice how "stiff" I was and started to teach my how. Apparently they don't run into many people here in Latin America who don't know how to use their hips, because she asked me,"Do people in the United States really not know how to strut?" Our answer was that it depends on how we were raised. Elizabeth had many laughs watching me learn how to strut. 

I didn't realize how physically demanding the Marinera was either. The professionals do it so elegantly with smiles on their faces. My face tend to exhibit many different expressions: The real smile when I have just recovered from a disgraceful fall, The fake smile when I remember I am suppose to smile, The awkward grin when I had just messed up, the purse your lips focus face, and the ever attractive open mouth focus face. And to add on top of it all our instructor yells the three same things over and over again," Hips!", "lean, lean lean!", "Don't look at the floor!" 

All in all I really enjoy dancing and now that it is getting cold here we are well warmed up after our class to feel it.