061. The last of the Free-Dancers

Mike finished his orange juice and moved towards the centre of the lounge. There was no point taking the temperature of the room – he knew it was too early in the night for what he was about to unleash. He just didn’t care.

Slowly at first, then growing quicker and bolder, he began shaking his body to a beat nobody else could hear. His gangly arms swung from one side to the other, and his legs jerked a kind of joyous death throe. He thrust his hips back and forward, flicked his ponytail to an imaginary bass-line and smiled. People were staring, but if he swayed a little bit, he couldn’t see them.

There used to be Free-Dancers at almost every party – busting their moves long before the speakers were plugged in or a playlist was selected. It was like they could hear something the rest of us couldn’t, a distant beat they couldn’t ignore. So they danced – part sweat, part spectacle, part magic – and we watched, until we were brave or drunk enough to put on some music and join them.

But somewhere along the line, the world got louder. Free-dancers couldn’t hear whatever it was that told them to move. They became endangered. Tall, gawky Mike – a software engineer from country Australia – was one of the last.

So when he took over Kim and Tony’s lounge, a crowd gathered to watch him. At first they were sceptical. He was all limbs and jerks and hard angles, and without the music the whole think hung like an echo without its origin-sound. It seemed weird. But there was a jubilation to it that was somehow mesmerising. People started clapping. Eventually, they joined in.

Dancing is stupid, when you think about it. It’s just two moves. You can bob your legs. And you can flail your arms. But that’s it.

Of course, you can change the order, the speed, the direction – and you can do the whole thing with choreographed grace or finesse – but when you really thinking of it, you’re just boobing and flailing, bobbing and flailing. Bouncing around trying to land somewhere higher.