Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 12, 1990 TAG: 9005120322
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TRACIE FELLERS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Maybe this won't be so bad.
Then it was time to add some hip action.
Hmmm.
The instructor said I seemed a bit stiff. He told me to look into in the huge, full-length mirrors. "I know you can get looser than that," he exhorted.
And I volunteered for this.
It all started when lambada hype hit the valley. About the time two movies based on the dance opened in Roanoke, the Arthur Murray Dance Studio began offering lessons, and a story idea was born.
However, when it was time to leave the office for the first of three lambada lessons, the forbidden dance - as it's been dubbed - was the last thing I wanted to do. I was swamped with other stories and feeling a lot more lethargic than limber.
But it was too late to wimp out.
At Arthur Murray's sleek Roanoke studio, I met dance instructor Tim Craft.
Before we got started, he told me the lambada was like dirty dancing, but more difficult.
Like dirty dancing? Hey, I'd seen the movie. Nothing wrong with those moves.
Then again, I'd never tried them. And the thought of dancing thigh to thigh with someone I'd known all of five minutes was beginning to be . . . well, a tad troublesome.
I later learned that the dance originated in Brazil, and that its Afro-Latin roots can be traced back to the early part of this century. The lambada didn't become big business until 1988, when two French promoters spotted the dance while vacationing in Brazil.
They took the dance back to Europe with a carefully planned strategy, designed to create a lambada craze. With the help of a steamy video and spicy tunes by the French group Kaoma, the lambada took Europe by storm last summer and drifted over to the United States last December.
Tim and I started with simple steps, separately. Tim faced the wide, gleaming mirrors on one wall and showed me the steps. Feet apart, flat on the floor. Then - one, two, three. Right, left right.
Just swing the hips a little. Not real steamy.
But I hadn't seen anything yet. Self-consciousness quickly became the watchword for the evening. It's one thing to read that the lambada sizzles with sensuality. Or that some call the dance "safe sex in the age of AIDS."
It's another thing entirely when you experience the lambada first-hand. The dance - which blends elements of the samba, salsa and merengue - can be friendly or fiery. But be assured it requires a lot more body contact than your basic waltz.
Tim started his career as a dance instructor in Roanoke, but also has taught the lambada and other dances at an Arthur Murray studio in Greensboro. Before he returned to Roanoke in mid-March, people were requesting lambada lessons at the Greensboro studio and the sexy steps were generating heat in nightclubs there as well, he said.
But despite all the national hoopla and the two lambada movies, interest in the lambada in Western Virginia has been lukewarm rather than red-hot.
I can empathize with Joe and Jane Roanoker. This is definitely a dance you'd want to do with someone you are, er, close to. As in significant other. Very significant.
But Mohammed Taher, owner of Roanoke's Arthur Murray studio, is confident that interest in the dance will increase here. "It's been my experience in the Roanoke Valley that things take a little while to catch on," he said.
Anyway, things went about as normally as they could during that first lesson. Tim, 23, was funny, patient and personable. He even got me to laugh a few times, though it probably was closer to an embarrassed titter.
We conquered the basic three-step move. But then we had to do the hip motion deal. Together.
A couple of other people were in the room. Talk about severe self-consciousness.
And this was only the first lesson. There was much more to learn, Tim told me. Like the dips, which are supposed to be sexy.
After a variation on the basic step, I would do a three-step turn away from Tim, then a faster turn into his arms.
Then he'd take me "'round the world," in a dirty dancing, back-arching dip. Lambada partners close that segment of the dance with seductive looks into each others' eyes.
Hey, they don't call it "the forbidden dance" for nothing.
But I was finding it hard to be sensual. I got the giggles every time I was supposed to give Tim a come-hither look.
What can I say? I'm a woman of the 90s. Seductive looks generally aren't in my repertoire after a rough day at the office.
Thoughts like: "What if my head hits the floor?" didn't help me get loose either.
But in spite of it all, the first lesson was fun - in an embarrassing sort of way. In fact, I almost got over the fact that others were watching part of the lesson. The witnesses were so encouraging, I quashed my thoughts about killing my editor for just suggesting this story.
I even promised Tim I'd work on my bedroom eyes. Geez.
Lambada lesson number two was upon me before I knew it.
And though good-natured teasing from co-workers about "setting the night on fire" wasn't helping my attitude toward lambada-ing, I actually had a good time. Forgetting a few steps didn't make me a dance-school reject, Tim assured me.
He was as patient and encouraging as ever, even when I stepped on his foot. I attempted to redeem myself by mastering a couple of steps I hadn't during the first lesson, and even learned some new moves.
But I got lipstick on Tim's shirt in the process.
So much for setting the night on fire.
On to the third and final private lesson, more proof that the lambada is not a dance for the faint-hearted. If the basic stance - in which the woman's legs straddle the man's right thigh - and deep, deep dips aren't enough for you, there's a samba roll, which requires the couple - already in a pelvis-to-pelvis position - to gyrate their hips like Solid Gold dancers. And some oh-so-seductive Latin arm movements. Well, you get the idea . . . after all, this is a family newspaper.
Those doing the lambada can tailor the dance to suit their individual tastes. It doesn't have to be quite as sensual, Tim said. "You can do a PG version of it."
And if Taher's hunch is right, you don't have to worry about the lambada hanging around for long. "I believe it's one of those fad dances," he said.
This whirlwind journey through lambada-land ended with a Saturday afternoon class. There were 10 other students - nine of whom were women. (They said most men they've encountered are embarrassed by the dance.)
I discovered my classmates had an array of reasons for getting in on the trendy - some would say tawdry - dance.
Yeah, it's undeniably sexy.
But lambada-ing also is wonderful exercise, said Carol Mullins, 38, who's been taking a variety of lessons and classes at Arthur Murray for two years.
Arthur Murray newcomer Susan Gerken, 31, is learning the lambada and other dances because she wants to have "poise and grace on the dance floor."
And Karen Carper, 37, who's been taking lessons and classes at Arthur Murray for 10 years, just loves to dance - for the sheer fun of it. "I've said that when I die, they're probably going to bury me on the dance floor. . .."
As for me, I've been known to boogie down with the best of them. But given the choice, next time I'd rather just brush up on my tap dancing . . . I used to do a pretty mean softshoe.
by CNB