Belly Dance on the Isle of Man

17^th  September 2005

by Jo Elliott

It's a Saturday morning in the middle of September and the start of a new term. For me it has been a long six weeks with little or no dancing, apart from a huge party to celebrate Chrissy's birthday. Now she has gone swanning off to America and left  the first class of the new term to be taken by yours truly and Alison, who at least knows what she is doing. I'm glad one of us does.

Alison gets to the hall first and unlocks the door. I arrive minutes later, carrying the crate of tea and coffee stuff. Coffee - that's what I need. I leave Alison to deal with a reluctant CD player and head for the kitchen.

The water boiler isn't working. There's no water in it and for some reason it won't fill up. No matter I'll use the kettle. One small problem: there's no water coming out of the taps either. One glance out of the hall door defines the problem. The road outside the door is taken up by a mini digger, a large hole, and two worried looking gentlemen in high-viz jackets. Apparently, in the process of laying some telephone cables, they have chopped through a water main. It will be fixed in two minutes, they assure me.

Fifteen minutes later, with people arriving all the time and a positive river of water flowing down the middle of the road , I pop out to the Co-op to buy a couple of bottles of Highland Spring.

Coffee tastes good.

Even after the coffee everyone feels a little stiff and unpractised after the holiday. I have prepared a warm-up, which proves to be too fast and too short. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

A man knocks nervously on the hall door.

" Who's in charge here?" he asks. Alison and I look at each other. "Well, all of us, really!"

It's the water. Have we got any yet? The taps produce a half hearted trickle. "Where's the stopcock?" asks the man. Since none of us has any idea, he crawls under the sink to look for it.

"You're all looking very smart," he says. "What are you doing?"

"Belly dancing," we tell him. He turns bright pink and dives back under the sink.

The class continues, interrupted now and again by men looking for stopcocks and other esoteric items. Alison takes us very gently through a number of basic techniques, just to get us moving again. We stop for a break and some more coffee, made from a second bottle of water. During the conversation it transpires that at least three people don't yet know the steps to "Kiss Kiss". This won't do. As soon as we have rested a little we are back on the floor demonstrating the moves, the walking through it, then finally just dancing it a couple of times.

That's enough work. Alison puts on our favourite Shakira track and we all have a bop. Then a slow track and a good stretch. Then it's time to go.

The water is flowing again, if rather fitfully. Our engineer shows up again.

"That's pretty good" he says. "Do you do public performance?"

Well, no. Not really, not yet. Not on purpose, anyway!

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