Dating : Urban Cowgirl

How the Texas Two Step helped to change the anxious girl inside of me

In 1980 I was in 7th grade. That year the movie Urban Cowboy came out and I wanted to see John Travolta in a movie, the cute guy from Welcome Back Kotter, because I was not allowed to see Saturday Night Fever. The big take away from the movie, besides the dancing and mechanical-bull scenes, was the fashion: designer jeans, tight fitting rancher tops and cowboy hats with feathers adorning the brim. This was also the time in my life when I began dance lessons. But before the dance lessons I roller skated, and I roller skated a lot. One day at the rink I arrived with my new cowgirl hat that I bought at the flee market, feather brim and all. I had my designer jeans on and I was dancing around the on my skates for most of an afternoon. To my delight there was a guy there around my age with his Urban Cowboy inspired outfit on too, black hat like Travolta, and I felt an immediate attraction. To my own bewilderment, at the couple’s skate, he held his hand out and asked if I’d skate with him. I had an unexpected reaction. I felt my face become flush and I thought I was going to pass out. I could not resist the urge to flee. “NO!” I said and skated away. Oh, my lord, the idea of holding hands with him felt so psychologically paralyzing to me that I suffered the loss of that moment to it and anger toward myself for not understanding my reaction. That boy was cute, damn it.

This social anxiety toward guys and any form of unplanned or unintended intimacy stayed with me into my adult life, including my career in the performing arts. The intimacy I am referring to is simply touching someone else or face-to-face interaction or eye contact. I am not referring to sex. As a dancer I have been challenged by physical contact with others in the studio whether it’s working through partnering movement or contact improvisation, with either a man or woman. I’ve always attributed it to being guarded and sensitive to other people in my personal space. I cannot pin-point an event that would have caused this, it appears to be a visceral and cellular part of who I am. Differently from being surprised by being asked to couple skate as an adolescent, rehearsing a partner routine for a performance does not cause me to panic and flee, but it does not come easy either. I can manage the intimacy of touch in performance without it appearing unnatural and often those moments in a dance are my favorite. I have never been able to flesh-out this split in my desire for intimacy and the humiliation that it can inflict upon me, but my ability to do it in performance is due to the controlled environment and the fact that I am being asked to do it.

Roller skating as a young person translated easily into club dancing once looked old enough to get in, before I became 21. The dance floor is intimate and communal but I invited very little touching when I danced at clubs. In my mid-40s I found myself going to clubs again. First, I sought out the gay bars and dance clubs with young people. Partly, I was trying to reconnect to the bodies of strangers and find joy in moving freely, and I did. However, I had forgotten about how challenging it is for me to do something as simple as partner dance; which I never did spontaneously or authentically anywhere for any reason, except at weddings with my family, which never felt spontaneous or authentic, just forced. Dancing face-to-face with anyone, stranger or friend, was still unrealistically hard for me even after all of the performing and experience I had with touching others while dancing. It all came flooding back when I began going to a country bar walking-distance from my home. At this bar they danced to live music where everyone was doing the Texas Two Step, like in Urban Cowboy. The Texas Two Step, or Two Step, is a partner dance.

I’d go and watch and if I was asked to dance, I’d say “no.” There was just no way. I would position myself to where I could see the whole dance floor and take it all in as if it was a performance. I’d imagine how impossible it would be to choreograph the controlled chaos of the dance floor or to recreate the authenticity of the dancers behaviors and movement expressions. Differently from observing club dancers, which is beautiful for its own reasons, Two Stepping expressed a humanity so genuine that asked for nothing more or nothing less than what is needed. Light bulb on.

I figured out that am challenged by being authentic in the public gaze when that very act of authenticity is required for the success of its performance. In essence, to be successful at Two Stepping, or any partner dance, one has to be authentic. My anxiety was in feeling vulnerable in public when that public space has an outsider’s gaze upon it; like a roller rink, or a wedding or honky-tonk dance floor. That was the first hurdle: resist the urge to perform or entertain. The second hurdle was touching and face-to-face intimacy with a stranger. Would I be okay with them walking away from me or me from them, after we danced? Do we hug, say “thank you,” talk, introduce ourselves? The answer is “yes” if you want. Simple.

I’ve been Two Stepping at least once a week for around two years with a partner and intimate friend I found one night out dancing. It happened over time. I’d show up and dance with one person, maybe, then sit out and watch. The Two Step is pretty simple; the “follow” puts their left arm on the shoulder of the “lead” and their right hand in the left hand of the “lead.” The “lead” puts their right arm around the waist of the “follow” and the steps are: two steps to the right and one to the left. Quick-quick slow. The turns and tempo vary. Face-to-face- eye contact is rare and not recommended. Talking is optional. Once I realized that partner dancing had no other agenda I started to relax and be myself. Imagine that. When I want to, I can let the face-to-face- or belly-to-belly or leg-touching-leg, be as intimate or not intimate as I authentically wish.

Not performing while in the public gaze had fed into my daily life. Life, the big and small bits. I learned how to show up with 100%: nothing more and nothing less. I neither sit back and feel life happening to me where my only participation is by reacting, nor do I show up over-prepared with speculations where I find myself fighting for the outcome that I presumed but didn’t get. Two Stepping alone didn’t teach me that. Dancing did.

Authenticity in performance is a generous act. It seems contrary to say so, but it’s what I believe. I receive that information from the other dancers on the club dance floor and in the dance studio. The generosity feeds me and demands that I meet them where they are: 100% nothing more and nothing less. Much like other dance improvisations I participate in. Performing choreographed dance feels violent to my body to these days. To require specificity that is memorized without sensing the now diminishes everything, and seeing it on stage has that same effect to me. Unless the performer reveals their generosity in vulnerability which is possible even with memoized movement.

I love dance as an art-form and always will, but to be able to hold hands with a stranger, listen to the music, move together and then the freedom walk away, (in some cases come back to one another), is precisely the kind of connection the world could use today. Something so simple, genuine and generous. If it could change the anxious little girl in me then it can change another and then another and so on.