I went to the Swedish Institute to see a Swedish folk dance group from Umeå, Björkstalaget. They had musicians, mostly fiddlers, who played the traditional music for the dancers. It was a good show. After an hour of music and the dancers, there was a break, and then everyone could dance. We did some large group line-dance style dances, circle dances, other things. Mostly at a walk, or slow skip. It was fun, and everyone could dance. (The average age at the Swedish institute is about 85.) Then the fiddlers started playing the more complicated polska, and one of the Umeåans asked me to dance. I had been paying attention and thought I could do it. The amount of spinning was incredible and I couldn't get my feet quite right as I orbited around my partner. He'd make these involuntary sounds and the end of each revolution as my feet got tangled up, "argh!" in English, "ärgh" in Swedish. I just could NOT quite get it right, and got dizzier and dizzier. I'm sure the polska is part of the training for the Swedish astronaut program. Then another one of the dancers invited me to schottische. Piece of cake, I thought. Miss Feldman had taught the whole class of 7th grade girls in ill-fitting blue gym suits to schottische, and I could remember the basics. One, two, three hop. One, two, three hop. Ha! More spinning! I was hanging on for dear life, and I'm sure my partner felt like he was Tarzan wrestling an alligator in death roll.
