The realized childhood dream, or The Passion of the Dance.
So I am sitting here playing the grand strategy game Europa Universalis III when I suddenly get this irresistable urge.
I have to listen to Irene Cara singing “Flashdance… What a Feeling”, the theme song from the movie “Flashdance”.
After having listened to it over ten times in a row while still having goosebumps the size of “Whoa! Can they do that?” and being unable to resist tapping and moving my body around to the beat so much that I have to give up playing the game for a while I start thinking about what this song means to me.
One of the few memories I have real clear in my mind from my childhood is my parents taking me to see the movie sometime around the Swedish premiere, which would be July 1983 and that would make me seven years old at the time.
The movie was rated “11 years and older” here, but as they so often did, my parents convinced the cinema staff to let me see it anyway.
It was the first time I can remember any personality transforming event occuring to me.
For the rest of the text to really make sense I guess I should describe how I remember the movie.
I might get something factually wrong, but hey this is my memory of it and so it is by definition right.
It is about Jennifer Beals’ character (“Alex”) working as a welder in a Pittsburg steel mill during the days, having to overcome or at least live in an environment telling her “You are not supposed to be doing this, this is for men”.
But she adapts enough to be accepted by her colleagues.
At night however she goes to work at a tavern where she puts on the most artistically accomplished shows she is allowed to do at a place like that, just to get to live out her life passion of dancing.
We are also shown how her dream is to go to the city conservatory to get formal training and become a “real dancer” as she has no formal training.
During one of her shows at the tavern, her boss (played by Michael Nouri I believe) sees her and comments to the steel mill foreman sitting next to him how he “Would like to get HER number” and the foreman makes a bet he can give it to the boss then wins the bet by giving her emplyee number or something to that effect.
Well, so the boss of course starts pursuing the attractive girl of the movie and after some resistance they become an item (hey, it’s the 80s and also I guess before we officially cared about sexual harassment at work).
So now “Alex” gets the support of her boss/boyfriend to apply to the conservatory and after a lot of adversity she gets an audition and, well you have probably seen the audition scene actually since it is still being referenced to.
Latest big splash was when Jennifer Lopez made a homage music video looking almost exactly the same as the audition scene, which of course resulted in lawsuits and all that crap that artists and their representatives do nowadays instead of art (grrmbl, hrmmpf).
Then, well, I won’t tell you more because you ought to see it.
The real big thing about the movie though is how the music is a major integrated part of it without the silly musical thing where the cast suddenly starts singing and dancing instead of talking (never seen that in real life I believe).
We see her dancing, see her passion, hear the music take a hold of her heart in a world made of steel, made of stone.
Gaah, sorry, there come the lyrics lurking in again.
Well, it’s still true.
There is this memory, still so vivid in my mind that I can almost smell it still, me dancing on and around everything I saw on the way back home from the movie.
Some roadblocks looking like the archetypical U.S. fire hydrant, but painted black, marking the begining of the pedestrian street Drottninggatan served as some sort of dancing poles.
The black and white tiles on the ground was showing me patterns for how to move my feet and the sound of the city was my music.
Then in the subway, well talk about a world of steel and stone?
One of my parents comment something like “You really liked that movie, didn’t you?” when they see me just radiating joy and energy while dancing from borough to borough.
My reply is similar to “When I grow up, I am going to be a dancer!”, which to my recollection is the first time I even though of anything like occupations or anything like that.
I guess that memory is a big reason why both that song and that movie still works so very, very much for me even though otherwise I consider the 1980s to be pretty much a lost decade when it comes to mainstream music and movies.
A guesstimation would be that about 93.5% of it, I react to with “Oh, yuck! What is this, is it even finished yet?”.
Of course I am not saying that is a universal truth and anyone who disagrees is wrong, I am just saying that’s how I feel about it.
But I digress.
The point is that despite working against those odds “Flashdance” left such a strong impression that 27 years later I can feel the passion, when I close my eyes I can feel the music, what a feeling…
Sorry, that was the chorus trying to sneak into the text.
Wait your turn!
Cut to about twelve years later.
After having grown up in an environment where my parents refused to get a TV before I was somewhere around 12 years old if I recall correctly and definitely didn’t approve of my having anything to do with computers I end up going into the computer industry as my first grown up job anyway.
This would be just at the begining of what we now call the IT-bubble where, at least as far as my surroundings are concerned, working with computers in Stockholm during the late 90s is probably comparable to working at a steel mill in Pittsburg during the 80s.
Except maybe that the coke around me is white instead of black, but arguably more harmful.
I learn that to fit in with these people I had to hold back a lot of my personality, such as almost everything related to growing up in a countryside hippie commune during half of my childhood and about 84% of my world view (bringing politics to work is like bringing the plague to work).
Throw in how I just assume that the character “Alex” was raised with the general opinion that “steel mills and welding is not for you” and comprare that to how I was told over and over again how the TV was the “stupidcan” and computers were more or less pure evil, I think we are kind of similar in how we both have to overcome the stereotype implanted during childhood.
Yeah, I could go on but I think we get the idea.
Then what do I do during the nights?
I go out partying at nightclubs, but while my friends are getting drunk I do not drink alcohol (or do any other drugs).
I dance, dance, dance!
Usually the first one of the club to hit the dancefloor, keep on dancing all through the night with breaks only to go chug water and then back to keep going until the club closes.
I do this pretty much every night for several years, whether anyone else is coming along or not, just because I can’t not do it.
I have no formal training, except the maybe three sessions of streetdance classes my parents took me to, but this is my passion being irresistable during the nights.
People react of course.
One guy wanted to fight me because I was dancing in front of his date, which was surprising to me since I didn’t notice either of them before he started to pick the fight.
A lot of people kept asking where I got my training and if maybe I could consider teaching them if they would pay me.
Well, I don’t think that that kind of dance should be taught more than maybe teaching how to bring out the slow glowing dream, that their fears seem to hide deep inside their minds… …sorry, lyrics again.
Let’s try again.
Well, I don’t think that kind of dance should be taught more than maybe to not resist the natural connection between mind and music that at least in my case is what makes my body move to beats I am not aware of when I am hearing music I have never heard before.
I have some other even more golden moments, but I think I’ll save those for some other time.
At some point some guy comes up to me, hands me a flier for a new nightclub he is about to open near Stureplan, the “it”-place of fashionable nightclubs in Stockholm.
He asks me to come dance at his club to get the place going each night, then keep dancing to keep it happening.
For me, this most of all means that I will finally actually be on the list at the door and not “the list” at the whim of the bouncers.
I also get a couple of hundred swedish crowns per evening for it, but that was at the time barely noticable in my economy (IT-bubble, remember?).
So there I am, actually working as a dancer during the nights, while supporting that work of passion with a day job being contrary to the acceptable norms of my upbringing and where I have to adapt to a workplace culture by changing my personality.
Weeell, I don’t know but I sure do spot similarities between my memory of the movie and my memory of my life during that time.
Now I was going to write about a bunch of other childhood dreams that have come true for me, but it’s almost 07:00 now so I guess maybe if I keep writing I’ll stop making sense soon.
Besides, how about we take life one dream at a time?
Oh, and I guess I know why I started this tumblr thingie now.
This text would not work as a tweet. ;-)
One last thing.
Here are the lyrics of the song as I hear them.
If you want to hear it, I bet you can find it on the Intarwebz somewhere.
If they can sue J.Lo (or whatever she calls herself these days) for an homage, I guess they don’t want me to give them good PR by sharing the a copy, they are just that silly.
At least to me, the lyrics really represent how it feels to let go and become the music while dancing even though the world is still harsh and cold around you.
——————-Begin lyrics——————-
First, when there’s nothing but a slow glowing dream, that your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind.
All alone I have cried silent tears full of pride in a world made of steel, made of stone.
When I hear the music, close my eyes, feel the rhythm wrap around, take a hold of my heart.
(Chorus)
What a feelin’, bein’s believin’.
I can have it all.
Now I’m dancin’ for my life!
Take your passion, and make it happen.
Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life.
(End of chorus)
Now I hear the music, close my eyes, I am rhythm.
In a flash it takes hold of my heart.
(Chorus variation two)
What a feelin’, bein’s believin’.
I can have it all.
Now I’m dancin’ for my life!
Take your passion, and make it happen.
Pictures come alive, now I’m dancin’ through my life.
(End of chorus)
What a feelin’…
What a feeling (I am music now), bein’s believin’ (I am rhythm now).
Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life.
What a feeling (I can really have it all).
What a feeling (Pictures come alive when I call).
I can have it all (I can really have it all).
Have it all (Pictures come alive when I call).
(call, call, call, call, what a feeling) I can have it all.
(Bein’s believin’) bein’s believin’.
(Take your passion, make it happen) make it happen.
(What a feeling) what a feeling…
The end.
P.S.
Wow.
When I was checking that I was not completely wrong about the movie having its Swedish premiere at the timeI wrote, I come across wikipedia’s picture of Jennifer Beals.
First, it turns out that it was correct, it was July 1983.
Second, the picture has the description: Jennifer Beals in Sweden
Third… The date: July 1983!
At least as I remember it, the Swedish premieres of major movies at that time were all at the theatre we saw it in.
Maybe, possibly, there is a chance that she was actually on the same street as I was while I was dancing home after the movie then.
That sure would be a twist of life…
