Just Dance

Halloween: the satisfaction jackpot of my childhood. Who could fail to find joy in the troves of free candy, the extended bed time and scaring your little sister without getting in trouble?

As teens turn into college students, Halloween is often shrouded by the fear of the DUI checkpoint, the worry that your costume is just not slutty enough or how the heck you will ever wake up for class the next morning.

I decided to skip the hangover and opt to face a better challenge: a sober party. Oh, and did I mention that this sober party mostly involved dancing?

Welcome to my Halloween night: the sober dance party.

Something I have never understood about alcohol is the tendency to use it as the relaxing happy medicine. Can you not have fun without alcohol? Can a group of over a hundred college students with a DJ and a bunch of sparkly lights dance like crazy people without the booze?

Are you allowed to dance like a crazy person if you do not have the “I’m just drunk” excuse?

How many times have you heard the classic evasion, “I can’t dance yet, I need a few more drinks before I can have fun.”

I am all about fun. And fun does not necessarily mean being wasted. Hard to relate to, but unbelievably I am not the only one to experience this phenomenon.

On Halloween night, over 150 college aged students, in full costume, gathered together in a rented warehouse with a million lights, a fog machine, a DJ and a dance floor.

Is it hard to believe they were all dancing?
Maybe it is a security and shyness issue for most people that hold them back from the freedom of sober dancing. Of course, you would have thought that timidity would have worn off after exposure to freshman prom.

Or perhaps the booze is another hipster trend, mostly to gain cool points and sadly one that only works as long as you avoid that looming nine-to-five job.

The thing about sober dance parties is that they tend to venture more towards goofy dancing rather than dirty dancing. Surprisingly, this did not take the fun away for anyone as far as I could tell.

And dancing is about having fun, right?

And Halloween is about having fun, right?

Sober dance parties on Halloween can be the most interesting show in the world if you appreciate that pitch-black warehouse, the sneakers squeaking on cement, the amplifiers and the shoddy dance floor that will never be forgotten by the lucid dancers.

Well, lucid might not be the best term to describe this colorful group of dancers. Some were excellent dancers and outclassed in the dance-offs. Others couldn’t stop laughing. Some were just plain nuts. Including back flips. And breaking down.

It literally was just plain- old innocent, childlike, honest-to-goodness, down-to-earth, genuine, remember-fondly-in-the-morning, fun. Not playing video games. Not watching television. I am talking about all those things you feel fine doing while drunk. Like, playing games, cuddling, yelling, singing obnoxiously loud, going on random adventures or even dancing like no one is watching.

Sober dancing is not awkward, folks. I hate to break it to you but it is just as sexy, just as fun and quite possibly more fulfilling.

It is a child-like and retro beauty and freedom from the restrictions of judgments and assumptions. As American poet, William Stafford said “Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.”

Girls make music videos with a hairbrush as a microphone. Boys play air guitar to their favorite metal song. There is a sort of insanity in dancing but also a sort of innocence.

Like free candy.

It is just a thought, of course, but being that little dancing maverick might be fun.

Face your fears and just dance. Lady Gaga recommends it, too.