Under normal circumstances, the UW student section is welcoming and pleasant. Gentle hostilities are exchanged between the sections and opposing fans have to expect ridicule, but I was not prepared for the intense alienation I felt Saturday afternoon. I have long felt the sting of prejudice and second-class citizenship since it was discovered that I have an inability to clap on rhythm, whistle, snap and—worst of all—participate in massive group dances.
I stood alone as everyone clapped their hands, shook their butts and danced around me. With my arms crossed and a look of disgust on my face, I silently protested. Under no circumstances, be they super fast, fast or regular, would I engage in the Chicken Dance. Some people protest hunger, some war, some land mines—I choose to protest dances.
In order to ease the process of organizing protests, offensive dances are broken down into three categories. Each describes a dance that is detrimental to society, and should therefore be swiftly exterminated.
Instructional dances: These include the Cha Cha slide and any other song whose lyrics consist solely of instructional dance moves. These dictator-esque directions usually provoke a revolutionary reaction similar to the one that results from being told to put one's hands in the air and wave them ‘round like one just doesn't care.
But there are also numerous other roadblocks to the instructional dance. There's the deciphering of lyrics (how exactly does a person Charlie Brown, and what is the proper form of a criss cross?), the added difficulty of distinguishing between right and left—a problem I have normally and isn't helped by the addition of a pulsating beat—and the inherent danger when a group of rhythmically challenged young adults attempt to line up in a formation and stomp, shuffle and clap on beat.
Nonsensical dances: The king of all nonsensical dances, the Chicken Dance, best exemplifies this category. The Chicken Dance doesn't provide any answers to life's questions (the ""YMCA"" at least lets you know where you can hang out with all the boys), and is in fact as socially alienating as life. Everyone couples off eventually and it requires a time commitment of at least three dances—normal, fast and crazy-kooky fast. It makes an entire, otherwise moderately intelligent student section look like morons and conjures up bad memories of indoor roller skating rinks, middle school dances and big butts being shaken around willy-nilly at a wedding.
Lost in translation: These dances—the ""Macarena,"" ""The Ketchup Song"" and all forms of line dancing—do not travel well over cultural borders and usually spawn awful newspaper feature articles and gym classes devoted to their teaching (a third-grade gym teacher who tried to spice up line dancing with Ace of Base songs comes to mind). Using unnatural hand movements, body jerks and knee slapping, people contort their bodies into shapes that are unappealing and uncool.
I know that my protestations are in vain. But maybe a contribution to bad-dance awarenessâ_plus a little more sickening overexposure and a well-placed trip back in time to prevent the Chicken Dance's compositionâ_""will help. You don't see anyone doing the ""Packerena"" any more, do you?
