Dance Dance

Thursday November 16th

So the end of my trip is nearing, but that doesn't stop me from sleeping in on this gloomy Thursday morning. I have noble plans of seeing the sights but end up heading in towards Covent Garden for some food and a bit of shopping. Craig, who writes for the Guardian... among many other publications, has invited me to be a part of a column that he writes for the national newspaper; a column about dancing, and why we do it. He will spend the next few days interviewing me about my love of dance, the style I choose to bust into when I'm in da club versus when I'm home alone. In fact, in the coming days I will share with him my dancing successes, failures and fears, but today is another day; today is the day of the photo shoot. Yes... you heard me correctly, a professional photographer photographed me shaking my money maker to my favorite dancing song; Fergalicious!

The photo shoot began in the late afternoon, so once I was done putzing about town; I hopped into a Black Cab (finally got to see what all the fuss was about) and headed off to the studio. I arrived a bit early and spent the down-time sipping tea and chatting with Craig and his Flatmate. When the photographer was ready and the music was set... I began to dance. Now, there's something odd about dancing in a room, bright lights blazing, while a man takes seemingly endless pictures of your tiniest move, all the while calling out encouraging words like "That's good" and "could you do that again, please?" <-- The British are a rather polite bunch, if you ask me. Anyway, Craig danced on the sidelines and that made me feel even more comfortable, because I'll tell ya, if you're ever in a dance battlefield... you're going to want someone like Craig beside you. He's a dancing powerhouse... but more about that in a future post.

By the end of the session I was hot, but energized... raring to go. Craig had to stay and work with some other dancers so I took the tube back into town, to continue my shopping extravaganza. London at night is quite beautiful, especially when you find yourself in the middle of a quartier known as Neal's Yard. Supposedly full of hippies, it is a beautiful area of stores surrounded by brick and soothing warm light. If it weren't getting a bit chilly out, I might have stayed a while longer than I did. Instead I made my way back to the studio, picked up Craig, and went off in search of some good eats. We ended up at a yummy restaurant in the area, where we met up with Molly, a friend from the States. She is boisterous and fun, and we have a grand old time talking about boys, girls, relationships, and the fact that we are all, no matter how old we get, no closer to the almighty answer than we were when we were born. One thing is certain, this trip is inspiring me.


Click here to see the online version of Craig's column about me!