A friend of mine once claimed that dancers ran in his family. But even after the briefest of demonstrations it became clear that dancers didn't even dance in his family. He was an advanced practitioner of what I called the Chaplaincy Shuffle - a class of manoeuvre enjoyed by the more devout university students who liked to get their kicks at sanctified discos held in Belfast's Elmwood Avenue. It's a dance which can these days can be observed most often at the weddings of school teachers. Even trendy priests are good at it.
The Chaplaincy Shuffle involves biting your lower lip, clicking your fingers, winking and moving your legs (one at a time) out to the side and back in again. It is preferable and some would say essential, that this is accomplished without any attention being paid to the music - especially the beat. Some of the more skilled practitioners may wish to shimmy with some kind of tentative sexuality, but this should immediately be countered by making a face to reassure everyone that you're only joking. The music of Bryan Adams is considered appropriate.
According to Chambers' dictionary, the definition of dancing is "to make a usually repeated series of rhythmic steps or movements (usually in time to music.)" It then lists among its examples: waltz, fox-trot, rumba, Charleston, turkey-trot, quadrille, paso doble, gavotte and minuet. There is a long list of possibilities and what strikes me with some horror is that apart from the twist and the hokey-cokey, I can't do any of them. What exactly is the Circassian circle when its at home? And so I have to admit that I can dance none. I'm a disgrace. I can't even do the Chaplaincy Shuffle.
I frequently claim Gene Kelly as an uncle - and his was a skill much prized in our house. Even so, twirling around the lampposts and stomping through the puddles of Fermanagh weren't quite the same thing. I tried it only the once. I was on my way home in a downpour one January night and I managed to scavenge a broken umbrella from a bin. Well, it was very late and there was nobody about and next thing I knew I was "singing in the rain" at the top of my voice and tap-dancing on the kerbstones. I was up to my knees in the deepest puddle, stomping up and down like a man possessed, when a silent RUC man appeared from nowhere. He was unimpressed. And he didn't go for my line that I was trying to break a bar of chocolate.
Other than that, my dancing lessons were confined to school discos - events of vague and unfulfilled possibility. The girls danced with each other and the boys treated the whole thing with contempt even though they had spent the evening squeezing their spots and trying to make themselves smell nice. It was important to be cool and grooving to The Human League and Spandau Ballet was not cool. Our chance to be impressive came only at the end when on came Freebird, Whole Lotta Rosie and Whiskey In The Jar. The once motionless and emotionless boys formed a circle, put one foot forward, rested a hand on that knee and began to shake their heads about. That's all there was to it. Headbanging it was called - quite ridiculous even by our own standards. By the time this ritual was concluded, the girls had long since left with the ones who had been doing the forerunner of the Chaplaincy Shuffle. In any case, we were too dizzy to do anything about it.
I read something recently about dance being a form of multimedia living theatre and how formalised dance is simply another language made up of symbolic movements. There is a dance in Ghana which is made up of 40 such symbolic gestures, one of which apparently means "I regard you as toilet roll." If dancing is in fact a multi-media living theatre bursting with messages to be deciphered from the costume, the expression, the gesture and the movement, I can't help wondering just what exactly Michael Flatley might be getting at?
But what about that other form of dancing for which I have a particular affection - the buck-lep and the common unstructured free-form boogie? I certainly hope I'm not sending out any weird messages when I'm doing my thing to Otis Redding or Funkadelic. If I am, I'm unaware of what those signals might be. My type of grooving might well be some kind of personal expression, but I tend to think it's more about physical release. More to do with acting the maggot, working up a sweat and enjoying the music. It's not necessarily a fertility dance - not the way I do it anyway. In fact, whenever I start my soul struttin' my partner usually distances herself in some obvious horror. And that must surely be the very opposite of a fertility dance. As for the Chaplaincy Shuffle . . .
These days we are repeatedly told that Irish dancing is "sexy". I'm not so sure about this. I can't think of a single country in the world where people dance with their arms fastened to their sides and everything happens below the knee. Not much scope for sexiness in that. Call me old-fashioned, but I'd have thought that the tango might just have the edge when it comes to an expression of sensuality - even the hokey-cokey wins hands down. Which is more highly charged? And be honest. A flamenco dancer with a rose between her teeth or contestant number 310 dressed as the Book Of Kells in a pair of white socks?
Some people think dancing is stupid, but I know it's not. There's something essential about banging the boots on the floor. Maybe you're trying to wake the ancestors, maybe you're trying to keep warm. There's something vital too about clapping the hands and tapping the feet and moving in some kind of rhythm. It is probably one of the first things that humans did that seemed frivolous - and I'm all for serious frivolity. And from whirling dervishes to set-dancers, to ravers, everybody knows that there's something quite mystical and "out of body" about something so ostensibly physical. As the song goes Free Your Mind, And Your Ass Will Follow.
BUT there is one exception. It is a phenomenon known as line dancing, and it must be stopped. It is the dancing wing of those forces that are continually and systematically trying to desensitise us with bland music, bland television, bland radio and now even bland dancing to go with the bland music. There's something very sinister about those ranks of bored-looking people holding on to their belt buckles and moving in unison in their shiny boots. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Chaplaincy Shufflers who started it. And to any young people reading this - make sure you find where exactly your parents are going tonight. You might think it would never happen to your mother and father - but you can't be too careful. Nip it in the bud.
I might just go out for a boogie tonight myself. That is if I can find somewhere that plays something that my throwback brain can connect with. First sign of any of that Barbie Girl stuff and I'm out of there. On the way home I might even make some attempt to turn myself into a multi-media living theatre and recreate once again Uncle Gene's finest moment. You might see me on your way home.
John Kelly is a writer and broadcaster