Sunday, August 03, 2008

A brief sociological thought about nightclubbing

We were dancing at Boogie Wonderland last night, my friend who's getting married and her friends, and I had a minor epiphany.

I reckon there are two broad categories of dancers in nightclubs - interactive dancers and trance dancers.

Interactive dancers are the ones who are quite unselfconscious, throw in the kind of flamboyant moves that are fun for everyone else to watch, and actively dance with people. They are the ones who start conga lines or get their friends to take turns moonwalking in the middle of the circle. If you're dancing in a group and the interactive dancer leaves to go to the Ladies', much of the loud, silly fun you're having suddenly evaporates until her return.

Trance dancers are selfconsciousness dancers; they'd prefer to have at least one cocktail down their gullets before stepping out on the dance floor. Once there, they tend to dance as though on their own. This is because they need to zone out a little before they are comfortable with moving to music in public. They are likely to stay on the dance floor until it's time to leave, because it's easier than having breaks and then deciding whether the next song is good enough to dance to.

I bet you can guess which one is me.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You were at a place called 'Boogie Wonderland'. What is there to guess? ;-)

Now that I"m old I hardly ever go out dancing, but the last time I did was for someone's birthday at 'Flash 80s' (which, obviously plays 80s music). So I was super excited about the prospect of fabulous 80s dance music except when we got there the entire place was stacked with 12 year olds. And it was a revelation to me that dancing has now devolved to a thing where you stand in a circle with your friends, and hold either a drink or a cigarette in your hand and then kind of wave that in time to the music. None of the rest of your body moves. Needless to say we left fairly early.

Bet you can guess what dancer category I belong to, too.

Anonymous said...

oh, and also meant to say, was the dress fabulous? And did you sort out your shoe dilemma in the end?

Amanda said...

Well- I am more of a trance dancer. And I need more than one cocktail. I can't honestly remember the last time I danced in public though to be honest. I have a dim memory of pogo-ing at a wedding about nine years ago

I think you missed out on one category of dancing though and that is the half falling over extrem drunken dancing while being snogged/groped by some stranger at a booze barn great New Zealand mating ritual. (Although I guess nowadays the kids may all be on ecstasy or other substances they didn't have back in the olden times.)

Watson Woodworth said...

Last night an eleven year old nephew (?) was noticing, at the side of the dance floor with me, how girls seemed immune to embarrassment.
All I could think was 'little dude, you've got a hard road ahead of you fo' sho' '.

Angela said...

I bet you were dancing the whole night long. After all you are a wild woman.

Smiles
sounds fun

Violet said...

donnasoowho: since you weren't so impressed with the waving-hand-around-a-circle style of dancing, I'd say you must be an interactive dancer!
The dress turned out to fit, and look nice too. And I found some el cheapo high heeled black shoes with a thin t-bar down the front. They made my legs look thin...unless I've been conned by one of those skinny mirrors again!

mtnw: yes I did miss out the drunken clutchers. I suppose, left long enough, everyone falls into that category...

nige: how on earth did he come to a conclusion like that? Girls are more vulnerable to embarrassment than any other creature on earth!

ange: wild? I wish I was...
But I did last till 2am though.

Watson Woodworth said...

He's a shy boy.
Gawd help him.