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| the dance of life |
The she-oaks whispered in the soft morning light of Saturdays when the small girls chattered their way along the zig-zag, a sandy track that wandered along the river bank. The Saturday morning dancing lesson. Children with names like Wendy, Sally and Jenny. And Beatrix Maree. And the dancing teacher was called Honey. She was smooth and brown.
Heel toe tap, heel toe tap across the polished boards of the huge sunroom that looked out across the town's gardens and the river. Little patent leather black shoes that tap,tap, tapped over the wooden floor and little skirts that whirled and showed lacy knickers.
Little plaid skirts that were attached to flannelette bodices kicked and spread their pleats as the little girls twirled in the sunshine. Soft black lace up shoes for the Scottish and Irish dances that did not tap and required more skill and discipline than seven year old children could muster to put them into dances. Not for these children the Royal Ballet Corps or the River Dancers.
When she was ten the school invited an itinerant teacher to teach dance. It was the year of the square-dance - four couples doing do-si-dos and swing your partner round the square in embroidered blouses and full floral skirts. White sockets and the first of the slip-on shoes. Beatrix Maree was a major player and her partner was called Max. They were the star performers at the school ball the year before high school. She fell in love for the first time but he ended up marrying her best friend at eighteen because she was pregnant. When he was fifty he danced off with another eighteen year old who has since danced on to better things.
Moving to the sounds of the sea and the storms along deserted winter beaches and down country lanes to the sound of the wind. Growing legs that were longer than her mother's, Beatrix Maree grew and danced awkwardly into adolescence.
Dancing in the gym. It was 1952 and the radio had just begun playing the Hit Parade. Pop music was readying itself for rock and roll and Elvis. The elderly parents shuddered at the sound of Little Richard and Doris Day. However the children were still taught to dance the formal styles, the Pride of Erin and the Viennese waltz were still required to launch them into society and being a debutante was high on the agenda.
Long dark green woollen box pleated tunics with a belt drawn tightly round middles that were not yet waists replaced the twirling skirts. White starched collars and the school tie knotted neatly at the throat. Black lisle stockings held up by slipping suspender belts that slipped and slid across non-existent hips. That lost the little button that grabbed the top of the stocking. And so the stockings were always slipping, slipping down to wrinkle around the ankle.
In the dusty school gym, waltzing to classical tunes and the Mocking Bird Hill. Foxtrotting neatly to Percy Stranger and Blue Moon. Barn dancing progressively around a circle so the fifty three hot sweaty lads could put their hand around a female waist too close to the undeveloped breast.
It was at this time that Beatrix Maree fell in love for the second time. With a boy called Ray who was a senior. Perfectly in tune with each other they waltzed and danced the lunch times away in perfect harmony. She sat in class and hummed the current pop tune – a song that went something like this - you're my Ray of sunshine you light up all the room - and so on. Meaningful music of the 50s. She loved it. They never spoke a word. He would stroll up, raise a blonde eyebrow and they would dance, float and dream. Sometimes they won prizes for they were very good dancers. He went to ballroom dancing lessons after school. Beatrix Maree pleaded but her elderly mother thought that would be too silly.
No one knows what happened or how it ended. Beatrix Maree thinks the boy called Ray probably left school and she fell in love with a boy called Robert, a boy called John and a boy called Ian.
In the late 1950s there were dances held regularly in every large town and city across Australia. Thousands of young people went to these dances which were usually held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Young women were girls until they got pregnant and married usually by 21. Boys stayed boys until their forties. Girls sewed dancing dresses from brocade and satin and if you were poor it was taffeta. Petticoats were full and lacy before they became stiffened by wire and rope. Belts were wide and waists were thin unless you were unlucky and got pregnant.
The progressive barn dance had progressed from the school gym to the dance floor proper. Girls were passed along a circle of never ending young men who smelt of Californian Poppy or Brylcreem or perspiration – sometimes all three. The smart ones twirled you twice before tossing you to the next boy who aimed to catch you on the move. Some had pimples and bad breath and others were just too old for the young girls they were asking to take home.
It was the time of the big dance band. In fact some of them were small orchestras. Many of them became famous in their own way. They were the local Benny Goodmans, the Glen Millers of Australia. Bit they did not attract the individual attention from girls that later bands and groups attracted. For important dances and balls they played till dawn and people danced all night. At the time there was a popular drawing that appeared on cups, cards, ashtrays and assorted merchandise of a very pregnant woman holding her arched and aching back singing -I should have danced all night - from her cartoon bubble. It was all class and culture in the 1950s.
Beatrix Maree was nearly fifteen when her elder sister and fiancee took her to her first adult dance. A bit young even by today's standards. She wore a beautiful sky blue frock with a fitted lace bodice and a full, full net skirt dotted with sequins over miles and miles of silk taffeta. There seemed to be thousands of elegant and sophisticated couples, the women in all shades of glamorous colour, sweeping magnificently round the floor.
In the darker background of the City hall Beatrix Maree found the Head Prefect, a sound and sensible lad who went on to become a research scientist in America. He lurched forward and grabbed her for a dance breathing a beery breath over her face as he led her in stops and starts around the floor. She told her elder sister who smiled knowingly and said – grow up.
At midnight the leader of the big band, a man called Pickering, asked if anyone was celebrating their birthday. Beatrix Maree went forward, all blue and sparkling and glowing from the dancing. How old sweetie? he asked. Fifteen she squeaked. Who brought this child to this dance - he roared into the microphone – take her home at once. And the band played happy birthday while the crowd cheered and Beatrix Maree danced her birthday waltz with her sister's fiancee.
In 1960 Beatrix Maree and her friend Josie went wandering to bigger cities, dancing their way through a summer of sunburn and lovemaking in the backs of cars. In Melbourne they danced the power-house* where couples were packed so tightly together all they could do was wriggle and smile to the sounds of early rock. To the beachside suburbs of the east coast where the lighting was dim and people power-housed or tangoed depending on the crowded floor. To the northern cities where rock and roll left them exhausted and tested their trust in the boys, who swung them wildly and slid across the floor to catch them just in time. Real smart asses those Sydney lads. To Geelong where Chubby Checker introduced the twist for the first time in Australia. Twisting the night away, the days away, and finally the year away. And Beatrix Maree did not fall in love once.
Suddenly the years collapsed and Beatrix Maree had children to dance with, to sling on her hip and twirl through the spring garden. To play dancing tunes on the old wooden piano and watch them dance like elephants, like fairies, like small lovers in love with their mother.
Beatrix Maree sent the children to dancing lessons but the teacher's name was no longer Honey. It was a name like Judith. Her dancing lessons were conducted in a converted garage – no sunshine, no windows. The children wore fancy costumes that were too sensual, too adult, and the choreography was more suited to well developed young women than children of five and seven. One day the children walked home from dancing through the suburban streets, across the highway, and up the long, long lane that led to the house. A thunderstorm, fierce and frightening, sent the children scrambling to a stranger's house for shelter. The fear of thunderstorms became greater than the joy of dancing and the children stopped going to the grey garage with a cement floor.
Beatrix Maree danced her way through folk festivals in the 1970s, through the country halls where the new movements of music were being explored, at cabarets leftover from the 1960s and through the dreaded country and western nights of the 1980s. Then along came nightclubs where she danced with friends who were equally intent on the individual dance, the Isadora Duncans of the 20th century. Her grown up daughters joined her and sometimes the whole family danced and sang as if this was their own venue, their family floor.
When Beatrix Maree turned 50 she hired the band, the cafe and the crowd. She dressed herself in beads and chiffon and danced until she could dance no more. It was a dance remembered by all. Beatrix Maree had decided that public dancing was over.
Now she dances with her grandsons. To twirl along the beach in the face of the stiff sea breeze. To play the tune on the piano, the tune to dance to. And to be sure she had perfect partners for a while – adoring and embracing. One day she will put on her silk and taffeta and take her grandsons to a dance, to waltz and float until there is no dance left in her grandmother body.
*http://www.rowinghistory-aus.info/club-histories/power-house/03-1.php
