Incidentally, I am reminded of a story about one of my Canadian great-aunts. She allegedly turned cans around in the supermarket so that the English, not the French, side of the labels showed and exclaimed aloud that they should be in "OUR" language. When I heard this, I thought it very cringeworthy. However, I can definitely imagine myself shouting against Christmas decorations in my old age, announcing that they should not go up until Christmas Eve "like in Poland." (Scottish passerby: "So go back to Poland." Polish passerby: "There's been decorations up at home since St. Andrew's Day.")
But because I lost so many guests to the premature Christmas Carol Party service, there were almost equal numbers of men and women. For the waltzing half of the Waltzing Party there were 8 gentlemen to 7 ladies, 6 excluding me, the instructor. However, two gentleman ran away after the waltzing--allegedly to the CCP--and one lady joined us for the jitterbug half, and so then we had 8 ladies to 6 men, excluding the instructors, which distressed me. There is nothing wrong in belonging to a stag line, but no woman at a dance wants to be a wallflower, ever. But fortunately the jitterbugging was entirely in the context of a lesson, so there was frequent changing of partners, and hopefully nobody felt conspicuous.
Gentlemen and ladies, if you wish to help restore Western Civilization, you must find and greet your host and/or hostess when you arrive at his/her/their party, tell his/her/them if you are leaving early, and then bid him/her/them good-bye when you go.
This Waltzing Party was an interesting challenge, for I discovered last week that our expert instructor would not be in town, and so the responsibility of teaching fell again to me. I could almost hear my old ballet instructor--the one who memorably injured my foot*--chuckling nastily in her grave. However, you can learn almost everything from YouTube these days, so I found footage posted by a very talented man in Latvia and watched it several times, making notes.
One thing I noted was that Mr. Smagris teaches his gentlemen how exactly to ask ladies to dance, and then how to return the ladies to their origin point. It all looked extremely graceful.
"Everything on the dance floor must be graceful!" I squeaked at my captive guests, although not as loudly as our authentic if absent Austrian expert can shout. I then made a speech that was not quite this, but was generally along the lines of what was historically said, like speeches made up described by Livy: "We must strive to be incredibly graceful so that we are not disgraced before the Viennese if our esteemed Austrian teacher ever takes us all to a ball in Vienna, which does not look entirely likely, given the expense of air travel and the uncertainty of your schedules, but you never know."
And the gentlemen all gracefully asked the ladies to dance, offering their right hands, and the ladies accepted, all gracefully once I remembered that they were supposed to clasp the proffered hands with their left. I felt like Balanchine, and my dead ballet mistress muttered resentfully in her coffin.
This is the part where I remember that I was trained to be a university chaplain and laugh very hard. I spent my internship listening to my charges' spiritual thoughts, plans, and claims, and getting into trouble for such things as refusing to volunteer my feet to be washed on Holy Thursday. I could not imagine one day I would be teaching young Catholics ballroom dancing.
But swing-dancing I can leave to professionals, and this time our instructors, having noted last month our Sunday attire, dressed up elegantly themselves. They then improved and added moves to our jitterbug. It was all great fun, and I think this week I will consult our TLM chaplain and lobby that we sing Advent Carols at the end of next Sunday's After-Mass Coffee Hour.
UPDATE: How to have a dance party for young Catholics
Caveat: I am not a lawyer and am not offering legal advice.
1. Be a well-known/trusted adult member of a Catholic community with a lot of young people who also genuinely likes young people. (Gnothi sauton.)
2. Consult the parish priest/chaplain and probably the safeguarding officer.
3. Find a good teacher or teachers of good character.
4. Rent a hall. (If applicable, make sure the hall owners--not you--are responsible for injuries to guests caused by the property.) 3 hours--half an hour for set up and clean up and half an hour for a snack break--should be enough.
5a. Make an announcement or (my preferred):
5b. Invite your guests individually. Make it clear that they can't bring their own guests to your party without asking you first. It is for them, but this is still your party and you are responsible for the happiness and well-being of your guests. This includes near-certain knowledge that none of them are going to down mini-bottles of whisky in the loo, or ask the youngest girl for her phone number, or tell her on the walk to her bus stop that he doesn't believe in God.
6. Ensure beforehand that your numbers will not be zero, but do not be annoyed if few RSVP. The majority might not know what an RSVP is, or why it is important, or any French at all, or where France is on the map. ;-)
7. Bake cookies and buy lemonade. Don't go overboard on food, for this is a dance party, not an eating party. If culturally appropriate, plan for tea and coffee during the break. No alcohol. Never alcohol.
8. Pray for the success of your endeavour.
9. Thank God when it all works out okay and ponder the lessons you have learned. You may be amazed and edified.
10. Thank-you notes/messages are not yet a thing with the younger generation, so treasure the ones you do get and don't sweat the rest. Your young guests will probably thank you on their way out. At least, I hope so. If not, make broad hints on social media as an act of charity. If not you, then who, as a wise young lady once asked me.
*As with many bad things, this was in the 1970s or early1980s, when adults still got away with doing stuff like that.
You don’t know how inspiring it is to read about your waltzing evenings! 🙌 This weekend I went to a waltzing lesson and dance that a young Catholic group about an hour away was hosting. Unfortunately they did not seem to be aware that what we were working on was restoring western civilization, because the lesson was short and half-hearted, and when it concluded they played two waltz songs before switching to pop music. I think the guys could definitely have used a lesson in how to ask a girl to dance, because multiple times, when I was standing with a group of women, a guy would come up and say to the group at large, “does anybody want to dance?” I somehow feel a lady should not be asked to volunteer herself like that. Oh well. I found a young Catholic swing dancing event in a few weeks that I intend to try, we’ll see how that goes. 👍
ReplyDeleteDear Emma, that lesson was tragic. If asked to dance that way, though, I would say "I do! I do!" and ignore the lad's dismay that now he was stuck with the married middle-aged lady. Ha ha! (Meanwhile, it would have been easier for the boys to ask if the girls were not in a big group. At very least, I hope you were in an open semi-circle indicating that you were open to being joined. Asking women to dance is very difficult if the man is not used to it, so you have to make it as easy for newbies as possible. It is not a war; we need to help each other.) Meanwhile, if I ever write about this for work, I will have to make sure the readers understand that we should be working on is restoring western civilization. And definitely that instructors should start with "How to ask a lady to dance" if not "What is the RSVP thing on the bottom of this invitation from the Gen X lady?" And do let me know how the swing-dancing goes. (Mrs McLean)
DeleteThere were plenty of moments when myself and other girls were circulating solo or in smaller groups, so there were other opportunities, and I can definitely appreciate that it’s difficult to ask…but it’s also difficult to accept when it’s phrased like that. 😂 A matter-of-fact how to ask/how to accept lesson at the start would be incredibly helpful for everybody, because the whole process happens so infrequently at modern dances that it can feel very awkward and high-pressure on both sides, which is of course silly because it ought to be a normal, low-pressure, and, as you say, graceful thing. The RSVPs and thank yous would also be good lessons not least because you certainly deserve thank you notes for your work organizing - please accept the thanks of an absent American for the blog versions of your waltzing evenings. 😂❤️ I will certainly report back on the swing!
DeleteIf I were running a finishing school--which I am not qualified to do, mind you--I would definitely give a lesson on RSVPs and thank you notes not because *I* need them but because they would help my students make good impressions in the scary world of graduate school, professional life, and society. If a Canadian professor abroad were to invite all the Canadian students he knew abroad to his home for Canadian Thanksgiving supper, my own students would be the ones to have a bread-and-butter note/thank you card in the post the next day (first class). They would thus make a very good impression on this professor (and his wife), who after all does not have enough time to lobby for the careers of/go to great lengths to support ALL his students.
DeleteRSVP sounds less bossy or naggy than "please answer".
ReplyDeleteI was a bit annoyed as a new immigrant that my children and I needed to learn not only English but also French and did not see the need for the second. At certain point I madk a 180 and became grateful for the pervasive free language lessons everywhere you go shopping.
My great-aunt could have learned from your attitude! (Mrs McL)
Delete