There's Always Room for Some Movement!

The lights go down. The stage is bare. Suddenly, the theater is shaken by a pounding Middle Eastern drumbeat, and before we can catch our breath, a dozen dancers in swirling blue-and-white dresses come bounding across the floor. They leap and twirl with all the urgent energy of youth.

I sit at the edge of my chair, uncertain whether to watch them or join in. The last time I went to an Israeli folkdance festival, I was going Israeli dancing at least once a week. That was a lifetime ago, before I had children. Yet once I hear that music I am 25 again, and my body longs to leap alongside the pony-tailed dancers.

Tants fraylech yidn!/"Dance happily Jews!"

Every culture and generation conjures up its own form of physical expression. We Mid/Yids started with "Ring Around the Rosie" and graduated to "fast dances": the twist, the monkey, the swim. The girls in my Bronx neighborhood were not particularly wild, but we learned to liberate our hips in adolescence, and shout soulfully along with Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin.

Later, some of us learned Israeli dances in youth groups or Zionist summer camp. And who among us -- even the arythmic, stiff-legged boys -- couldn't join the circle at a wedding or Bar Mitzvah, and fumble their way through a basic hora?

It becomes trickier to keep those dancing feet moving as we age. Even at a simcha, they rarely play the choreographed Israeli dances I know. They play generic Jewish music. And after the fourth or fifth round of a steady grapevine step, holding on to an 8-year-old or a heavy-footed peer, I'm ready to sit down.

If I'm lucky, in-between the Electric Slide and Cotton-Eyed Joe, some Motown will come on. I am definitely in my element shaking it to the Four Tops. But then, my teenage daughter appears across from me, stricken, and begs me to get off the floor before I embarrass her further.

It's more comfortable to dance among people our own age. But who has dancing parties anymore? Adults mostly talk and eat.

One couple we know does hold a dancing party each spring. They push back their living-room furniture and pull out their old dance tapes. For one evening at least, I can go back in time to being the sensual, swirling self that's held at bay by motherly and grown-up concerns.

Dancing is just not a motherly thing. It taps into our primal urge to explore our body's possibilities, attract a partner, and exalt in the joy and abandon of moving through space. Who cares if I get a little winded after one song? At least I'm still out on the floor, shoes off, body in motion.

When those girls leapt across the stage at the folkdance festival, I admit that pangs of envy followed in their wake. I used to kick up my legs like that. I remember those times of bouncing effortlessly, unencumbered by the weight of adult concerns.

But wait -- I'm unencumbered again! I have energy freed up that was previously used for hands-on parenting. I may be stiffer, slower and tire out sooner. Yet that urge to move is like a pilot light, waiting to be ignited when some heat is needed.

Twenty-odd years ago, I witnessed a performance of Liz Lerman's multigenerational company, "Dancers of the Third Age." Moving in-between the young, trained dancers were women in their 70s and 80s. It was wonderfully inspirational. Each performer was eye-catching in a different way.

I don't want to wait, though, until I'm in my 70s. I'm ready to audition now for a Middle-Age Moving Company. Almost everyone I know has strong legs from years of activity. Our arms might be soft, but they're fluid from lots of caretaking.

When we someday glide along the stage in our blue-and-white outfits, our steps will have the weight of things and people well tended to. Until then, we'll do the hora with the best of them and tants fraylech every chance we're given.

Mara Sokolsky is a freelance writer living in Providence, R.I. E-mail her with any comments at: sokolskaya@cox.net.