I Miss Dancing

Shagging my way back in (see previous columns for full details) hadn’t been enough and I was forced to obey my saviour’s will by fear of being banned from Chueca again. A fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy – not even on Lady Gaga. And that’s all I’ll say about that. However my book ‘Drag me to Hell’ will soon be available in bookshops near you.  

Finally back on the scene, after too long an absence, I was dying for some serious boogying. The kind where you find yourself jumping up and down, fist in the air at 7 in the morning, elated by the pure energy emanating all around you to the sound of RUN DMC. The kind that leaves you sore for days and that makes going to work almost bearable again even if it feels as though your hair is growing inwards. 

I went on a disco crawl – a week-long disco crawl: Delirio on Monday, Why not on Tuesday, Zombie Club on Wednesday, Liquid on Thursday, Polana on Friday, Cool on Saturday and Finally on Sunday, crawled up in bed, I texted back all the lovely boys I had met through the week (my new moderna look was seriously paying off)  

I was exhausted but most of all I was disappointed. Not that I had regained a social life and my freedom, not that I had gotten lucky the way I used to when I was 20 but that through an entire week of serious partying, I hadn’t actually danced per se.

What has happened to dancing?  What has happened to shake your hips? To learn all the latest choreographies? To dance till you dropped? To dance-offs? To vogue-ing? Huh?  I remember my last visit to New York City, when clubgoers parted the dance floor in one of its fabulous clubs, leaving room for the voguers to do their things. Paris where the Parisians tried out their latest dance moves in front of mirrors. London when in G.A.Y the entire club spontaneously did the Saturday Night routine. Not to forget the sheer madness of the Berliners who don’t care if a dance floor is empty or not and invade it anyway to trip the light fantastic. When flash mob dances are taking over the world, how come the majority of Gay Madrileños refuse to shake their stuff?  

For a country known worldwide for their fiestas, there is little fiesta happening. There is drinking, there is laughter; there are new friends to be made, there are songs to be sung in the streets at 6 in the morning but there is no dancing to be seen; just a simple swaying from side to side, a fag in one hand and a beer in the other. It reminds me of the way my parents used to dance at weddings when I was a child, embarrassing the life out of me. 

It’s not about remembering Steps’ 5,6,7,8 routine but about enjoying the beat, letting go of our inhabitations and shaking our booty. So 5, 6, 7, 8, my boot-scootin’ baby is driving me crazy…