"Dance that funky cha cha, white boy..."
Category: Ballroom Dancing... Local... Music...
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 05:40 PM [GMT-6]

The Ballroom Dance Society's July shindig is a casual affair, the only one of the year where the guys toss their ties and the ladies shed the sequins and silk in favor of flouncy frippery. We also generally experience a change in music style, with bands who lean toward the rock and roll side of the musical family tree.

Last night was a good example, as The Shades provided the music, and quite frankly it was the best time we've had on a dance floor in recent memory. The band has been around forever, it seems, but inexplicably this was the first time we'd heard them. They provide a "CPR playlist" – country, pop, and rock, although not in that order – and they were in fine form at the Midland Country Club.

Apparently, so were we – that is, the collective group of ballroom dancers – as the band expressed their amazement at playing for an audience where (1) everybody danced, and (2) everybody knew how to dance. Making that observation once could have been chalked up to an attempt to butter up a well-paying audience in anticipation of a repeat invitation for a comfortable gig, but their kudos went well beyond that point. And if you think about it, there's probably not much better affirmation for a rock 'n roll than moving people to get up from a nice meal and hit the floor. So, the appreciation was mutual.

But it was an interesting scene. Most of the crowd was AARP-fodder, but that also meant that we grew up with the music the band was playing. That also meant that we brought a certain "maturity" to the dance styles, meaning that there were actual steps involved, unlike the arrhythmic shuffle-and-jerk I did when I was in high school. But that led to some occasional incongruities.

For example, one expertly-performed medley merged La Bamba with Twist and Shout, which in turn led us through a dancing safari combining rumba, East Coast Swing, and – what else – the twist. I had never considered it before, but a lot of the Beatles' music lends itself to Latin dance steps (although some of it also has rather maddening tempo changes that make it a challenge to dance to).

Our ballroom form quickly went by the wayside, though, when The Shades launched into a rendition of the Isley Brothers classic Shout, popularized in Animal House. It was a toga party in spirit, if not in fashion.

The best was saved for last, as the band ended with a high energy version of the Commodore's Brick House, followed by Wild Cherry's classic from which the post title is derived. I seriously doubt that when Wild Cherry recorded Play That Funky Music, they envisioned that three decades later a bunch of middle-aged hipster wannabes would be doing the cha-cha to their song (and mouthing all the words at the same time) in the middle of an upscale country club ballroom. Is this a great country, or what?