Summer Doldrums

I wonder if dancing has a season. It seems to me that summer is the off season for dancing because there are so few signature events. No costume balls, no holiday flings, just day after hot day slowly ticking by. From personal experience I know that, in the days before there were vast air conditioned dance spaces all summer events (dance and otherwise) were held outdoors. Last summer we went to High Bridge, KY for an event at the High Bridge Pavilion. The venue was beautiful and it brought to mind visions of men in panama hats stepping off the train and making their way to the venue under the stars, arm and arm with their best girls. It’s a romantic vision and though some elements might be pretty right on, that rosy picture ignores some truths. For one, an August dance would be sweaty mess – one up-tempo swing, one hot Louis Armstrong or Benny Goodman number, and I’d be soaked. Sweat would be dripping from the tip of my nose and pooling in my shoes. Sure, you get used to the climate you live in but I’m pretty sure I’d never acclimate to that!

This realization came to mind last Saturday. We attended my niece Ruthie’s 18th birthday party in the clubhouse of the condo community where my in-laws live. The event was great – friends, relatives, music, and about a metric ton of sugar combined to while away a summer afternoon and send a lovely young girl on her way to womanhood and a life filled with grand adventures. There was a little dancing, maybe three or four turns on the dance floor, and still the sweat was rolling down my back and soaking through my shirt. The clubhouse was air conditioned but the heat index outside was 106 and Mother Nature always wins that battle.

Still, there are the weekly club dances – small events in small venues until fall arrives. This weekend we’re dancing the traditional haunts: Starlight Ballroom and Indiana Roof Ballroom. Every morning I get up and the sky’s a little darker and I’m reminded that fall is on its way and soon the dance season will reopen.