Final Blog Project: "The Truthfulness of Hips" (submitted to Speak Magazine)

Showtime.

The audience waited. The music began. Jess and I danced towards each other in front of the classroom, swaying our hips with all of our gringa glory. We bounced from side to side and spun each other around. We giggled.

"¿Alguien sabe el baile?"

"¿Cha cha?" someone offered.

We cued up the Power Point. "El merengue," we responded proudly.

"Oh," our professor said. "You're dancing to salsa music."

A fine start, indeed.

I would have made a lovely ballerina, but I’m not a terrible gymnast. I'm pretty solid in Spanish. Combine Spanish and dancing, and the phrase "analysis breeds paralysis" comes to mind: How come nobody else looks like an idiot besides me?

My incompetence was first revealed during Africana Dance last semester (which, ironically, nearly every gymnast in the class had to withdraw from due to injury). I was pretty good at slapping the floor to the drumbeat and waving my arms in a tribal manner. But when it came time to salsa, my professor inevitably walked over and poked my hips. Move those.

I moved them. All right. I had a rhythm going. The music was moving. I was moving.

I finally looked in the mirror and saw a pale girl dancing in the manner of a child learning to hula and failing at it.

I’ve yet to find a Latina or black woman incapable of rocking out to any rhythm. Turn up the music, clear off the dance floor, and watch them work their magic. Ah, if only my European ancestors had jumped and clapped to driving drumbeats instead of dancing stiffly in a parlor somewhere…

But I won’t take on the burden of my ancestors. So Emeline (the sole gymnast survivor of Africana Dance) turned on Shakira and gave me an impromptu dance lesson in her room one Saturday night before we went out.

“You know my hips don’t lie…” the Colombian singer crooned seductively.

"Loosen up your arms," my housemate instructed. "You're not doing a floor routine."

True.

Emeline poked my hips. She pretended to grind on me and I ran away. She spun in circles and I imitated, knocking a picture frame to the floor.

In the end, she stood back, watched, and said, "Much better than before."

My confidence boosted, I figured the two-step merengue would be manageable as our group project for Spanish 319. Jess and I danced to YouTube videos in the Mac lab. We talked merengue. We visualized it. Miranda was wise and opted to play the music instead.

Undeterred by that minor error of salsa instead of merengue music, we invited the class to join the "dance floor." Well, how about that? Our professor could do the merengue, and it looked nothing like our very enthusiastic version.

"That was perfecta," a classmate said as I took my seat.

Well, perhaps not. But I'll still be moving to music anytime I hear it. Regardless of how I look.