sarasusa

Yesss! Finally got myself back to folkdancing! (Actually, it was my longtime pal D who suggested returning, and provided transport...but hey, I went!)

You see, during the summer, they have international folkdancing on the patio at the top of the "Rocky steps" that lead up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I've loved international dancing since college. No, actually since my childhood years in Tonga and Fiji, when my parents organized dances for the United Nations staffers there.

So the occasional breeze finds us, and the PECO Energy building flashes its messages at us, and we can look all the way down the Ben Franklin Parkway to City Hall...but mostly we're dancing. Dancing to crackly recordings, to newer beats--Israeli, Greek, all sorts of Balkan, Russian, Canadian, Breton...and a meager few from Asia and Africa. (There *is* a distinct imbalance in the repertoire.) But I revel in it all anyway: the words I don't understand, the rhythms into which my awkward feet gradually slip. Folk instruments that give melancholy voice to feelings I'd forgotten.