It’s not a seizure, I’m just dancing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/01/2010 (5932 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

My head is spinning. My heart is pounding. My legs are cramping. My breath is coming in short, wheezing gasps. My body is drenched in cold sweat.

It’s Friday evening and I’m in a cavernous downtown ballroom. The room is spinning around me. I’m surrounded by about 60 people, all of whom are giving me looks of great concern, anxiously wondering whether they should call the paramedics in case I’m experiencing some manner of painful seizure.

But they are wrong. I’m not having a seizure. I’m dancing. OK, I’m learning to dance. I look like a man who thinks his feet are on fire and he has to slap them on the floor to put out the flames.

I’m at the Ted Motyka Dance Studio taking my first-ever lesson because I’ve agreed to take part in an event called Dancing With Celebrities, in which seven local "celebrities" are paired with seasoned partners in a ballroom dancing competition in support of the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities/Easter Seals Manitoba.

I exaggerate a lot of things in this column. But I do NOT exaggerate my inability to dance. I am to dancing what Paris Hilton and Ben Affleck are to acting. Imagine the worst dancer in the world, someone who moves with the grace of a cinder block, an inflexible, ungainly chunk of granite who makes Frankenstein’s monster look like Fred Astaire. Got it? Good! Because I’m much worse than that guy.

So I knew exactly what to say when Andrew Terhoch from SMD/Easter Seals invited me to dance in the competition, which takes place May 1 at the Fairmont Winnipeg and will hopefully raise $50,000 for the society.

I told Andrew: "No!" Then I told him: "I’m sure my wife won’t let me do this."

So Andrew said: "Why don’t you ask your wife." So I did.

Here’s what my wife said: "You are so going to do this! This is going to be s-o-o-o-o much fun!"

It turns out my wife has prayed that, one day, I will stagger off the couch, take lessons, and whisk her around a floor the way Danny Kaye did with Vera-Ellen in White Christmas. Who knew?

That’s how I ended up in the studio Friday night, with my wife, standing in our stocking feet on the same floor where J.Lo and Richard Gere practised their sultry moves for the made-in-Winnipeg film Shall We Dance.

The other "celebrity" dancers include fiddling sensation Sierra Noble, children’s entertainer Fred Penner, "Dancing Gabe" Langlois, former Harlem Globetrotter Glover Jackson, Fairmont GM Indu Brar, and deputy mayor Justin Swandel.

Before the ballroom showdown May 1, we have to spend at least 20 hours sweating in the studio with our partners, learning enough moves to cobble together a three-minute routine of kicks, spins, turns, fancy costumes and fiery music in hopes of wowing the judges and escaping with our major organs intact.

So here I am for the first lesson. I’m more nervous about this than I was about riding a horse for the first time when I attempted barrel racing at the rodeo in Morris.

But my wife is thrilled. If her smile were any wider, her face would split in two. The plan is my wife will learn all the steps too, then help me practise when I’m not hiding in the den.

Margaret Motyka, co-owner of the studio, is going to email us videos of sexy Latin dances so we can watch them together until we are burning with the desire to perform sensuous moves I cannot discuss in a family newspaper.

I knew this was going to be hard, but I didn’t think it was going to be this hard! Now I’m on the dance floor, struggling to move in synch with the music. My mind is repeating "1-2-3, rock-step, 1-2-3," but my body — "4-7-12, lurch left" — is moving to a mysterious, incomprehensible beat of its own.

My wife is staring at me. Margaret Motyka is staring at me. And so is my new partner, Anna Rudman, a gorgeous Russian-born dancer who is facing the challenge of her life — turning a giant lump of clay into a giant lump of clay that can do the rumba.

Yes, Anna has decided I will train with her once a week to master the rumba, her favorite dance.

"It’s the dance of love," Anna explains as my wife looks on in awe. "It can be romantic, tragic, sexy, whatever. You have to look like you are in love with that person. I believe in my abilities. We can do it!"

Anna says she’s going to make me work very hard. She wants me ready to rumba by May 1. I am terrified. But my wife is completely and utterly delighted.

So I’ve got that going for me.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Dancing and dining with Doug

 

THE fourth annual Dancing With Celebrities gala in support of the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities/Easter Seals takes place Sat., May 1 at the Fairmont Winnipeg.

It’s an evening of fabulous food, fun, and a chance to see local personalities paired with serious ballroom dancers trying not to spin out of control and slam head-first into the salad bar.

Tickets are $175 apiece, or $2,000 for a corporate table of 10. Just call 975-3084 or visit the society’s website and click on fundraising.