Dancing at the Knights of Columbus

Note: Somehow this one wound up in the draft bin instead of getting posted...so much belated, it hits the presses!

Yesterday we had an opportunity to dance at a new venue, the North Side Knights of Columbus. The K of C (at least the one we visited) probably isn’t known for dancing. They had no proper dance floor, just a public school-grade linoleum on concrete deal with a stage fit for Easter pageants at the front of the room and a window into the bar fit for making those pageants tolerable at the back. The K of C is a social club with Catholic connections – the pope’s answer to the Elks, Masons, and other popular fraternal orders of the early twentieth century. Every time I dance at a place like the Moose Lodge I’m reminded that there was a day when insurance didn’t exist and these organizations through their membership fees provided a means to paying for disability, medical care, unemployment, and even burial expenses. It’s odd to think that, in a lot of ways, the 2000’s could use a resurgence of the fraternal orders. This is a blog about dancing, though, so I’ll stay away from musing on reconstructing society! As our favorite DJ often says, well…let’s dance.

So, as I mentioned, the floor was hard and slick and not well suited for anything involving athletic movement in suede-bottomed shoes. It seems to be that a place that’s not set up with a proper dance floor will necessarily lack sufficient space for dancing and the K of proved no exception. Somehow, in spite of the size of the room, adding tables and people equated to a jammed floor with many near collisions. I fall back on an early plea from the blog: if you’re dancing realize you’re not the ONLY person dancing.

Sure, there are accidents. Last night a very good dancer practically started off his EC swing between Kelly and me. I know he’s good and I know he’s very polite, so I chalk that one to a simple error. However, when six or seven couples do the same thing there’s something wrong. Not everyone on the dance floor is a clod so there must be some mystical energy, some occult phenomenon akin to the Bermuda Triangle that comes into play when dances are held in a space not intended for dance. Compasses spin, radios go haywire, and even the deftest of dance mavens find themselves left-footed and stumbling out of control. Their sense of propriety abandons them. Their knowledge of floor-craft becomes a fuzzy memory. Soon they’re tripping the light not-so-fantastic right across your big toe and putting their prodigious butt in your partner’s face.

I’m becoming enamored of bringing an exorcist to these cursed venues. A little holy water and incense, a few mumbled prayers, and out damned dance demons! Maybe we’d all be better dancers for the ceremony. The only problem is I would have figured the K of C would have some kind of stored up resistance, a Vatican vaccination handed down through organizational lineage. Eh, so much for that theory.