Despite all of its advantages, study abroad has the downside of imparting some annoying habits on its participants. Between ridiculous complaints that “I can’t remember what that word is in English” and attempts at adopting the baffling skirt-over-jeans look that is popular in some Latin American countries, it is clear that there are some habits that are better left abroad.
One practice that just doesn’t translate is dancing. Abroad, I could go out and find everyone-men, women, children-shakin’ it. During my semester in Santiago, Chile, I quickly became acquainted with the Brazilian power dance group Axe Bahia. Having taken Latin America by storm, this mixed-gender dance-and-song squad frequently appeared on variety shows, demonstrating the individual dance moves for each song they had, and every single on their entire album was a smash hit. They were buff, tan, good-looking and they could move.
The biggest hit was “Mayonesa.” The lyrics roughly translated to, “Mayonnaise, you mix me up like mayonnaise.” The accompanying dance is supposed to depict someone stirring a giant vat of mayonnaise, sure to lure anyone from the opposite sex. Another condiment song (by a different group) is “Ketchup,” and the dance is pure genius, involving elements of the Charleston, The Hand Jive and spirit fingers. There is also the slap-your-butt-and-turn dance, the make-wave-motions-with-your-hands-then-clap dance and the diagonal-punching-motion dance. Of course, there is the Salsa and Meringue, but those dances require skill and rhythm, and it is much easier for a foreigner to make the stirring-a-giant-vat of mayonnaise motion.
What is so addictive about these dances is that everyone does them. Twelve-year old girls come home and practice these moves in front of the TV, random cadres of middle schoolers break into uniform dance if the song comes on at a fast-food restaurant. Everyone has heard the songs, and no one is afraid to dance.
Back in the United States, “real men” don’t dance, instead preferring manly activities like watching football and hauling lumber. I tried to dance back home in clubs in Pensacola, Fla., but it wasn’t close to the same. The dancers seemed to tend towards social deviancy. Local dance clubs include Seville Quarter, a collection of bars that includes the “booty room,” where watching people dance is comparable to a train wreck—you know you shouldn’t look, but it is impossible to turn away. Rather than wholesome condiment songs, there’s Khia’s “My Neck, My Back” and everyone’s favorite from DJ Assault. Even worse is Capt’n Fun’s, which is not only a misnomer, but one that invokes pirates and walking the plank. A “beer girl,” frequently wearing only a bra and jeans, greets Navy guys, stationed in Pensacola for flight training, as they enter the club. But this initial woman sighting is not indicative of the 10 to one male-female ratio in the club. To make up for this gender imbalance, many guys are content to whip out glow sticks and dance by themselves to the club’s rotation that always includes heavy doses of Eminem and Justin Timberlake.
Back at Georgetown, if I suggest going out to dance, my friends look at me like I’m crazy or say, “Sure, we’ll got out to a club sometime as a joke.” But those short months in Chile left me with a fever, and the only prescription is more dancing. I took secret hits in my room, doing the Electric Slide, the Dip, Slapping Leather, or the Bootscootin’ Boogie in solitude. At first, public manifestations were only the occasional “Dance Breakouts,” which others didn’t seem to mind and might even join in for a couple of minutes. Yet it wasn’t enough. I started dancing by myself in public in non-dance-club settings. I have danced in the grocery store to the muzak. I have danced in the aisles of Hollywood Video to the sounds of movie previews. I have danced in my seat to the soft music in the background at Clyde’s while I waited for the rest of the table to order. I have danced to no music, only to the rhythm of Jon Stewart’s voice as he reads the day’s news. I start dancing when my friends talk to me. I continue dancing as they become embarrassed and try to pretend like I’m not dancing beside them.
My friend has an electronic James Brown doll. When someone turns it on and walks by, he starts singing and dancing. I am the electronic James Brown of friends.
This weekend I went to see my friends’ new apartment in Kober. Their new roommates just got back from Chile and Costa Rica and showed us the new dances that had been popular for the last couple of months in Latin America. They didn’t claim they couldn’t remember English, and they certainly weren’t wearing the skirt/pants combination, “skants.” They, did, however, want to dance. I felt right at home.
Gina Pace is a senior in the School of Foreign Service and senior writer of the Georgetown Voice. When Hank Williams, Jr. sings “I have loved some women, and I have loved Jim Beam, and they both tried to kill me in 1973,” she understands.
