Healing through blues dancing

The blues can be sexy ... sultry ... deeply emotional. Lyrics that cut right to the bone. Instrumentals that cry out from the soul. You can listen to it ... feel it. Or you can move to it and become part of the music. Some people say dancing to the blues is transformative, tapping into something we can’t usually find.

That’s what Lindsey Lee Keel went searching for. Here’s her story.

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LINDSEY LEE KEEL: Blues music was once called “the devil’s music.” Despite its past demonic associations, blues has saved me. And it’s saved other people too.

It’s Monday night in the mission district of San Francisco. We’re at a place called the Polish Club. It’s not a bar; it’s a community center that tonight, and every Monday night, is a dance hall.

People have come out for blues music yes, but more to the point, they’re here to dance.

It’s really warm, the windows have begun to fog. The lighting is dim, and couples are dancing, some really close, some slowly, arms around necks, heads on shoulders or foreheads pressed together. Some stand back from each other with goofy grins moving their hips, spinning someone or being spun. The secret is that though it might look like it, these dancers are not in love with each other. Some may not even know the name of the person they’re dancing with. Others see each other out dancing a few times a week. These, like me, are devout blues dancers. We need it.

When I say that blues dancing has saved me I’m being completely serious. Blues saved me from a really unhealthy relationship. It was the kind of manipulative situation that made the world feel like it was shrinking during every conflict, like I was sliding slowly into the darkness of a muddy hole. When I discovered blues dancing it was like discovering I had been living in two dimensions.

Other dancers feel this way too. Here’s Cat Hughes.

CAT HUGHES: It’s falling in love, that’s what it is. It’s crazy. Every dance is like a love affair. You’re falling in love, for three minutes – with the music, with your partner, with your connection. And it can be dangerous, because you’re falling in love like a million times a night, and it can really screw with your emotions but it can also be amazing if you understand what it’s about.

For Krystal Wanberg it was the beginning of life.

KRYSTAL WANBERG: It’s like I had been waiting to live, like I had been waiting to grow into my body and then waiting to do something with it once, once I had it.

Back when she was first starting, Krystal remembers telling a prominent dancer in the scene how nervous she was.

WANBERG: And he was like, “Okay, just play along with me.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And he’s like, “Pretend that I am your one true love.” And I kinda gave him this weird look, and he’s like “Wait, wait, wait – I am your one true love, and I have been called off to war and I am leaving tomorrow, you may never see me again.” He’s like, “Dance with me, like that.” I was just like, “Ah.” And it was just the most incredibly connected dance. I was completely, completely done, like, I was a blues dancer after that, it was done.

The connection that Krystal felt is what blues dancers are constantly seeking.

WANBERG: It forces you to learn to communicate with other people.

Communicate in a non-verbal way. When you learn how to physically listen to your partner and your own body while dancing, it tends to carry over into other parts of your life.

WANBERG: It’s like a self-improvement process. Yeah, you have to grow some confidence.

Before I discovered blues dancing, I had been so uncertain of myself, of my life. But as I continued to dance, the air changed around me. My hips, had discovered a hidden freedom of movement. The space around my body made room for the confidence that was growing inside me.

Within three weeks of blues dancing, I decided to leave my boyfriend. 

Many dancers talk about “before” blues and “after” blues. Vhary Leggat had a problem with alcohol. She struggled with a negative body image. She sometimes felt suicidal. But after blues…

VHARY LEGGAT: I have become more connected to my body. You can’t go to a dance and say, “I don’t want to be reminded that my body exists,” because that’s what dancing is.

Many dancers like Vhary feel changed by blues dancing.

LEGGAT: My release from fear and sadness started with getting sober and ended with learning to dance, and that because of those two things, I am awake and I am healing. I’m no longer the person that I was.

When you’re obsessed with something that you feel has changed your life, you want to share it with everyone. I have convinced baristas to ditch their coffee shop tunes for blues, and to come out from behind the counter and dance with me, right there. I have slow danced with strangers under late night gas station lights and made the clerk curious enough to breech his own sense of safety, unlock the security doors, and join in. I’m telling you, blues dancing makes you do crazy things.

We don’t have a neon sign that says “Blues Saves” shining like a guiding light for the wayward, and we won’t show up at your door and hand you pamphlets about how your road to a better life begins at the church of blues, but we want to, we really want to.

Lindsey Lee Keel is an independent reporter. This story originally aired on January 12, 2011.

Want to dance the blues? SF Shades of Blues, Beyond Blues and The Rent Party all publish information on weekly events in the Bay Area.