Connection

I’ve been thinking a lot about connection, both on and off the dance floor. In life, aren’t we all just searching for a connection? Searching for someone who is on the same page as us, someone who gets us?

And yet sometimes it feels like we’re not even reading the same book, let alone on the same page.

On the dance floor it should be easy to make connections. We are all dancing to the same tune, after all (in theory!). But a true connection is a rare thing.

Kizomba (one of the many different dances I now do) has taught me a lot about connection, which I try to bring into all of my dance. In kizomba the follower (usually the girl in a male/female pair) often closes her eyes to better feel the lead and in turn make a deeper connection. It sometimes amazes me that my body knows what to do and where to go with just the subtlest of touches, and that I can understand a lead often from someone I’ve never even met before without any verbal communication.

In all dance my aim is to connect both with the music and with my partner. Whether it’s a fun, fast salsa with a cheeky lead or a slow, sensual bachata or kizomba full of emotion, what’s the point in dancing if you don’t connect? In my mind, you might as well be dancing alone if you are not connected when you are dancing with your partner.

Leads need to be aware of the space around them when dancing, but if the lead spends more time looking around than he does looking at his follower the connection will be lost. I’ve had whole dances where the guy has barely looked at me, perhaps through nerves or inexperience, and it doesn’t make for a great dance. I’m not asking for constant eye contact – that would be creepy – but a good mixture of eye contact and generally looking at each other in order to connect is important for me in most dances.

In fact, this is something I would say is important in most day-to-day interactions. I don’t expect deep eye contact (or deep connections) with most people I interact with daily, but if the person serving you in the shop seems disinterested and barely looks at you, or if your colleague does’t have time to smile in your direction, that makes for a pretty lonely day.

Of course, in kizomba you don’t have the eye contact to make a connection with, so you have to connect in other ways (chest connection is the main thing, but it’s more than just being physically close to someone). In a good kizomba dance I feel like I’m dancing in a bubble, just me and the guy, connected as one moving object drifting around the dance floor. That’s what I’m looking for in all dances.

But this dance floor connection doesn’t have to be any more than that. I have found that it can be possible to have an amazing connection with someone when the time and the music is just right, and never even get to know their name or see them again. It’s sometimes simply about sharing a moment.

So what about off the dance floor? Connections made whilst dancing can be difficult to interpret, and sadly might not exist once the music stops. That’s where things get difficult. You can find yourself thinking, “but we had such a great connection…” and wondering why what you had whilst dancing simply doesn’t exist elsewhere.

I’ve made some of my very best friends on the dance floor, and met some of my favourite people in the world, but I’ve also had a lot of single moments of connection with people I may never see again. Connection can be brief and fleeting, but that doesn’t mean it has any less value than those connections which last a lifetime.

So are we all just looking for a connection? Yes, I believe we are. Whether on the dance floor or off it, finding connections with people, whether in friendship, romance or something else, seems to be a vital part of this thing we call life.