Dance Humor, Quotes, and Academic Research

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Dance Humor

I recently read that the chemicals that are released in the brain when people laugh, are actually good for their health. So here are a few dance-related anecdotess to give you a chuckle.

1. True story: I was teaching a Casino Rueda workshop to beginners. We went over the first several basic moves extensively, as many people were having trouble with them. One of the students suddenly made a loud sneeze. Another student immediately said, "Enchufla!"
   
   
2. This is another true story.  I was at a club and a few Rueda dancers were forming a circle.  We needed one more follower, so we looked around and asked a very strong woman dancer if she'd mind stepping into the circle even though she didn't have much Rueda background. She spoke Spanish and had lots of Salsa experience; we figured the leaders could get her through the steps.  So we started dancing and she was doing fine. Then the leader called "Beso" and she suddenly ducked!!

   
   Above: Casino Rueda Demo at First Night Annapolis, 12/31/05

3. I have a cartoon on my wall that depicts a primitive-type cave man and woman in a tropical paradise. They are in a tango-like dance position, and the caption reads: I think you misunderstood.....I said "I'd like a mango."
   
   
4. This is also a true story.  I arranged for a few advanced Rueda dancers to do a demo at a club some years back.  There were two couples and as is the custom, the caller was making very sure that the other leader heard the calls over the loud music.  So the caller looked right at the other lead, yelled the calls really loud while gesturing the hand signals very broadly.  After the show, I asked the guy who wasn't leading what his family thought, since they'd all come down to see us.  He said, "My mother liked the dancing, but she asked me why the other guy was yelling at me the whole time!"
5. One day in my Catonsville class, I was teaching Kentucky Complicado which is a very nice but pretty complicated step.  A guy in the class who is very funny commented after mastering the move that in basic training for the army, if someone did something against the rules, their commanding officer could yell:  "Give me 20 Kentucky Complicados!!"
6. I have Rueda de Casino dance friends in New York City who complain that the "on 2" Salsa dancers there predominate, and let it be known that they feel their style of dancing Salsa is the best.  The Rueda folks feel a bit "put down" by this attitude.  So I got an email once that was addressed to a bunch of mostly New York dancers, in which the writer was blowing off steam about the matter.  He said, "Do you ever wish that "on 2" remained in our language solely as a preposition, as in "Get off the high horse you got ONTO"?!!
   
   
7. When I first began dancing Casino Rueda, I constructed a "Rueda Trivia" quiz for someone's birthday. They were to call out the questions and the dancers in a circle would dance the answer. Here are some of the items:

   Home of a horse-racing derby	Kentucky
   A very large hill	Montana
   A car gets ahead of another car	Pasea
   A car weaves ahead of several cars	Pasea complicado
   A swear word	Dame
   A swear word and a drink	Dame con coca cola
   The fourth prime number	7
   Used when a fencer takes a jab	El sabor
   Do this with a hot iron	La presa
   Bottles of beer on the wall after 9 choruses	90
   Summer fruit	El melon
   Scant bathing suit	Enchufla bikini
   First name of a weight loss program	La Jenny
   Sherlock Holmes called her "Your Majesty"	La Victoria
   Rueda step with an obscene hand signal	Dedo
   Wedding night fun results in this	Bebe
   Four of them make a dollar	La cuadra
   Shalom	Adios

   
   

8. I have a fond memory of taking a family trip and one of my boys got a book at a gift store where we were visiting to read in the car. It was titled: The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said. He sat in the back and giggled for the rest of the trip. Periodically he'd read one of the entries aloud to the rest of us and they really were hilarious.

   So when I was planning a road trip with some of my dance friends, so we could collaborate with a Philadelphia Rueda group, I threw a few books in the car to keep us occupied. To my delight, one of my friends did exactly what my son had done. He laughed and giggled reading the book, and occasionally read some entries out loud.

   So for your entertainment, here are a couple of them:

   "There has been no exclusion. We have simply excluded all the women." This was said by Nicolas Romanoff, descendant of the last Czar of Russia to explain why no women were invited to a meeting to form a family foundation.

   Here is one Yogi Berra said, to explain why he didn't want to go to a restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." (This could be said about some Salsa Clubs, and everyone would know exactly what was meant!!)

   I think this was our favorite: "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." That was said by Mayor Marion Barry of D.C.

    

9. I saw a cute T-shirt at a Salsa Club. It said, "If there's no Salsa in heaven, I'm not going!!" And there was a picture of a devil below that.

   10.  I assembled a group to work on a routine and we were adding body rolls and ripples in various places to Rueda moves.  The group consisted of one guy and several ladies.  They guy left as we were still going over the technique for these rolls.  As he exited through the door, he looked back and said, "Normally I have to pay for this type of entertainment."

   11. Check out the adorable video at this link of a dancing dog!!
                 http://www.cutefunnyanimals.com/smartestdog.shtml

   12. Go to the link below and watch what the notes do. Try making really fast circles with the mouse. http://www.dancemetonight.com/spotlites_2004.htm

   13. This is a dance-type video of guys on treadmills that is really clever and hilarious. Don't miss tickling your funny bone with this video clip!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI