ON GIVING DANCING ONE MORE CHANCE.

By Ofelia Brooks

On the way to a college party in 2005, I ran into William, a classmate I had been crushing on for two years. I started flirting with him, ignited with liquid courage from pre-gaming in my dorm room.

It worked. He slowed our pace down, letting others walk ahead, and licked his lips. “So

am I gonna get a dance tonight, or what?”

“You sure will,” I replied confidently. The alcohol was talking.

“This will be interesting,” he supposed, “since…you can’t really dance.”

I froze. I stammered, “You think I can’t dance?”

William shook his head. “No. You don’t really…have it,” he declared in an uncanny

imitation of Abby Lee Miller from “Dance Moms.” 

Each word hit me hard. My liquid courage all but dried up. I had been revealed. By junior year, I thought my dancing had elevated to “fine.” I thought next to my best friend, a trained dancer, that I had achieved my desired goal of “not distractingly bad in comparison.”

Apparently not.

I widened my step to catch up with William, and pretended nothing happened.

As the party was winding down, the DJ dropped “One More Chance (Remix)” by the

Notorious B.I.G featuring Faith Evans and Mary J. Blige.

The partygoers, myself included, let out a collective gasp of excitement when the familiar

beat dropped. Then we headed to the dancefloor. As the refrain set in, I sang along with my eyes closed. One more chance, Biggie, give me one more chance.

I zeroed in on a classmate, Christina, who was searching for a dance partner. She moved toward William, a few feet away. He took her hand, turned her around, and she put it on him. Meaning: she bent her knees and stuck her lower body into his crotch, led with her hips as his followed back and forth, and caught each one of his pelvic thrusts with her ass.

I watched in awe. I desperately wanted to be in Christina’s place. To be sexy, feminine, confident, Black.

William was right. I didn’t have it. Or any of those things.

#

I learned at that college party how Black people were supposed to dance. We were to

grind, freak, twerk, wine. Mimic sex with our clothes on, on the beat.

I didn’t know how to dance like that, no one had ever showed me. My older sisters and

aunts, even though Caribbean and fans of hip-shaking soca music, never danced like that. My mother definitely never danced like that, even as soca classics like “Nani Wine” played

throughout the house and instructed us to “wine down low, wine down so.”

I spent the rest of college and the rest of every party I’ve ever been to wanting to dance

with William to “One More Chance.” I saw dancing as approval from him, or some later iteration

of him—confirmation that I was attractive to men and acceptable to Black people.

So, I endeavored to become a good dancer. Embarrassment and an entry-level salary kept me from signing up for any in-person dance classes. Instead, I turned to YouTube’s cornucopia of dance tutorial videos. I couldn’t keep up with any instructors who were my age, in their mid-twenties, so I scoured for videos tagged for older women. Even the majority of those proved too difficult. My few achievements came from tutorials for elderly Black women with joint

Problems.

Once during yet another practice session, I came across a routine to Missy Elliott’s

“Work It.”

I was back in high school, riding around town with my basketball teammates listening to

the radio. When we heard the record scratches at the beginning of “Work It,” we gasped and

yelled the opening lines. DJ please, pick up your phone, I’m on the request line.

One of my teammates, Sonya, barked at me. “Dance! Show us how you freak dance!”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, which must have plainly shown on my face.

She started illustrating next to me in the back seat—rolling her upper torso and sticking out her

seated butt. I tried to follow along and it was dark enough for her to think I was doing the same

thing. I was not.

Months later, Sonya and I were at the high school prom dancing with our dates. My date

and I faced each other, me swaying side to side, to 2003’s most popular songs. When “In Da Club” by 50 Cent blared through the venue, my prom date told me to turn around. I obeyed and

stood straight up, swaying nervously trying to find and stay on beat.

I muttered encouragement to myself. You’re doing fine.

I was not doing fine.

Five minutes into the song, my date pulled away. I turned around as he leapt behind

Sonya. Without skipping a beat, she rolled her torso and stuck her butt out, just like the car ride.

My prom date’s pelvis dipped up and down, lower and lower. Sonya’s pelvis followed in sync.

A crowd formed around them and cheering erupted. I stuck my neck out to get a glimpse. They were on all fours in a pose I later learned from yoga was called bridge. Sonya was on top, their pelvises still in lock step. I looked on with envy.

Later, I confronted my date about abandoning me. “You just didn’t dance freaky

enough,” he shrugged. His answer seemed idiotic to me. But I had no comeback. I retreated.

A yearbook photo captured the crowd on the dancefloor. There I am, my head a few

inches taller than my date’s, not facing him, “dancing.” My mother saw the photo and reprimanded, “Girls shouldn’t be dancing that way, not facing their partners.” My dancing was

freaky enough for my mom, apparently.

#

In my early thirties, I got engaged to my boyfriend, the first and only white man I ever

dated. My attention turned to planning the wedding reception. For every reason that I wanted to

have dancing at the reception, I thought of a reason that I didn’t.

I wanted to dance at the reception because I love the music associated with the dancing.

The songs are irresistible. They make even my naturally disinclined body move. When the beat drops on “Back That Azz Up” by Juvenile or “Shake It Like A Salt Shaker” by the Ying Yang

Twins, it’s impossible not to do as the songs instruct, even if not particularly well.

I wanted to dance because I assumed that no one would judge the bride’s ability to dance on beat. Anyone judging would at least have the decency to do so out of my earshot.

I wanted to dance because I would have a considerate dance partner who would not

abandon me on the dance floor for many reasons, not the least of which would be because I

didn’t dance freaky enough.

I didn’t want to dance at the reception because: I could not take the pressure of all eyes

on the bride; I generally don’t like dancing in front of white people because it feels like allowing

them into a space that they have not earned the privilege to enter; and I couldn’t dance the only

way I knew how, which was to close my eyes and do whatever my body wanted.

My fiancé had the luxury of always dancing like no one was watching. No one was

watching. I could never dance like no one was watching, even when no one was actually

watching. Alone at home, I heard my prom date or William or Sonya, or even my well-

intentioned fiancé encouraging me to relax my shoulders when I got stuck out on the dancefloor

at an all-white wedding and I couldn’t beeline fast enough out of there, so I stayed for a few,

tense two steps.

I thought of all the unsolicited instruction I collected over the years. Like: counting on

two and four; bending my knees; and moving my hips in a figure eight motion. Or I thought of

all the on-body adjustments my male dance partners made over the years whether requested or

not—usually not. Or trying to mimic from memory Christina, Sonya, or pretty much any Black

woman I ever saw dancing in real life or on screen. Even alone, it felt like at least one hundred

people were watching.

I grew up in adversity, and I knew conquering obstacles required facing them. I decided

to dance at the reception. I could do this. I wanted this. I deserved this.

Ever the good student—I was high school valedictorian, after all—I decided to keep my

goals small and address a couple areas in the weeks before the wedding. There would be line

dances or recent dance challenges. I brushed up on the ones I knew (The Wobble, The Cupid

Shuffle, The Electric Slide, Swag Surf, the last five minutes of Beyoncé’s “Get Me Bodied

(Extended Mix)”). I learned new ones and practiced them over and over again so that I could be

sure to remember them while drunk. I studied my body in the mirror. I made my own on-body

adjustments. Hands here. Shoulders like this. Butt like this.

During a final practice session, I focused on learning an elderly dance troupe’s routine to

a Black wedding classic, “Before I Let Go.” Hours in, I started to have fun. Even though it was

difficult, try after try, I was getting it. I stopped scowling at myself when I messed up and

laughed instead. When I closed my eyes and let my muscles remember the moves, I heard no

instructions, suggestions, or voices, not even my own. I felt the music, and it felt good.

At the wedding reception, I readied for my performance. I pulled up the dance playlist

and requested that the restaurant host turn up the music.

“I’m so sorry,” the host fretted, “the restaurant is designed for ambient music. This is as

loud as it gets.”

“But we want to dance now,” I whined. “We can’t hear the music,” I pouted.

The host continued to apologize and comped us a round of champagne.

Deflated, I sunk down next to my new husband for family speeches. The evening

whizzed by.

There is a new Tik Tok dance every week—the “Buss It” challenge ended as the

“Crybaby” challenge began. I watched tutorials from Black women with bad knees (my knees

are perfectly fine) and thought I could probably manage to figure these dances out or fake my

way through them.

I started following CJ The Trainer on social media, a twerk dancing coach. I almost felt

inspired to try an online class after hearing Lizzo say after CJ’s class: “Twerk is a Black person’s

thing honey… Don’t be afraid. You can do it. Put your back into it. Put your ass into it…This is

spiritual. It’s sexual, not sexualized. It’s in our bodies. It’s in your thighs.”

But I quickly lose interest. The voices are back and loud, the eyeballs intense, the hands

and adjustments all over.

#

I haven’t listened to “One More Chance” in a long time. The pandemic has given me

space to focus on self-pleasure, where there is no room for the self-critique that comes with

Dancing.

I recently read a book suggesting women get in touch with their own pleasure by

watching themselves masturbate in a mirror. I did the exercise and saw, for the first time, how

easily, automatically, organically my body swayed back and forth to a natural rhythm. I needed

no instructions, I heard no voices.

I did have it. I watched it right there in the mirror—my sexy, feminine, confident, and

Black body. It was sexual, not sexualized. In my body, in my thighs.

On one of these interminable Friday nights stuck at home, I have a mind to put on “One

More Chance (Remix).” And move like when masturbating, only standing up.

Backwards and forwards. Forward and back. Not putting it on anyone. Just dancing for

me.

Ofelia Brooks (she/her) is a Black, Latiné, first-generation writer and lawyer. A writer all her life, including her first chapter book at age seven, she’s just recently begun submitting her creative work for publication. Her work appears (or will appear) in Drunk Monkeys, Amplify, Spillover, and Honeyfire. She can be found on Twitter @ofeliabrooksesq and at ofeliabrooksesq.com.