{"id":1062,"date":"2019-09-06T15:41:53","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T19:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soniasvikt.org\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2019-11-25T12:50:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T17:50:19","slug":"loving-to-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.soniasvikt.org\/?p=1062","title":{"rendered":"Loving to Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have always loved music, and to dance and spin. I have been dancing my whole life, from ballet lessons at age 8 to square dancing on Martha\u2019s Vineyard at the Chilmark Community Center at age 11 to folk dancing in college (at UC Berkeley and Ashkenaz) and grad school (Johns Hopkins University, including the Balkan dance performing group Narod) and now into my 60\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother hated when I was dancing and spinning and would yell and make me stop immediately. I don\u2019t know what made her so intolerant. She said she was afraid I\u2019d get too dizzy, but what is the harm in that? Perhaps she just didn\u2019t want to see it, or it was too joyful when she was unhappy. So it is interesting that now I specialize in turning dances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had twenty non-dancing years while living in Charlottesville with a non-dancing husband (a mixed marriage!) and raising children while working full-time as a scientist and professor. During this time I tried several new groups and types of dance and realized that a big part of what I loved about dancing was the friends and relationships I had in the community, not just the dancing itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After years of receiving the Scandinavian Week flyer and longing to go but not attending, I signed up and was accepted in 2003. It was short drive from Charlottesville to Capon Bridge, West Virginia. My first night at camp out in West Virginia I wondered, \u201cWhatever was I thinking!\u201d It was a radical move to sign up for a week-long dance camp after 20 years of not dancing. But Paul Kreiss was there and remembered me from dancing in the Balkan performing group in Baltimore, and he pulled me up on the dance floor saying, \u201cYou know this one!\u201d Sometimes I even did know that one! Other campers were friendly and patient and encouraged me. The dances that year were Southern Sl\u00e4ngpolska from Sweden, and Springleik from V\u00e5g\u00e5 from Norway. I managed to learn those, but at the end of that week I only knew those two dances out of hundreds. But more importantly, I realized that I needed that kind of fun and joy in my life. I drove away at the end of camp knowing that I had to make whatever changes would be necessary to be with these people and have dancing in my life. I have been avidly Scandinavian dancing since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n