It's Musical Madness!

Over the past five or six weeks I have been dancing again, and it's been great! About two minutes down the road in Grassmarket is Dance Base, Scotland's national centre for dance, with fantastic instructors and great facilities (including views of the castle above), so I had no excuse not to check it out. All last year a friend of mine had been raving about this lunchtime drop-in class she'd been attending, called Musical Madness, where they would learn choreography to well-known musical theatre songs. It sounded like a great time, but I'm the type of person who, if I stop work in the middle of the day for two or more hours, I'm don't pick it up again until tomorrow, so it wasn't practical for me to go.

This year the class is held on Wednesday nights, and now that we've moved it's literally two minutes away. Unfortunately, because it's in the evenings lots more people are able to attend, so getting a spot is a struggle. Our instructor is incredible, talented and a lot of fun, so it's no wonder he's one of the school's most popular instructors (so they've told me). Another friend and I showed up half an hour early on the first night to get a spot, but there already two others waiting in line and we left empty handed. Now we have dance cards that let us book our places online first thing in the morning. This can also be problematic, however, as there's only a couple spots available to book, and the time at which they are offered varies from week to week (spots have become available as early as 8:30, or as late as 9:45 am), and then there's also the worry that my friends won't have gotten a spot even if I did.

Luckily, other than the first week I've made it to every class I've wanted to. I'm considering signing up for the entire term in the winter, to cut out the stress of trying to get a spot, and because it is so much fun! Every two weeks we learn a completely new style of musical theatre dance, and its always a surprise. We danced some complicated steps to music from the Queen musical We Will Rock You, and learned a detailed number to All That Jazz in Fosse's signature style. The last two weeks we've danced to Aye Carumba from Copacabana, which was ridiculously fun and so very camp, shaking our maracas, banging our bongos and balancing fruit baskets on our heads as we danced around. The steps and routines are challenging enough to keep me completely focussed on the task at hand (something I also always loved about ballet -- I can't worry about school while dancing), and with daylight disappearing around 4pm it's also good incentive to get out and be productive and active in the evenings. It's also been great going with friends. This is a new experience for me, and it makes class a lot more fun.

So I'm looking forward to going again next Wednesday. Who knows what style we'll be dancing to next?!