The dance school - short story

Literary Review, Summer, 1998 by Manfred Wolf

In 1948 when I was thirteen and living in Curacao, a ballroom dancing champion from The Netherlands came to the island and in a flurry of publicity opened a dance school. Articles in the newspaper proclaimed this yet another bounty for the colony from the mother country, which now after the disastrous war years was beginning to find itself again. First came the new DC4 from the KLM inaugurating a direct route between Amsterdam and Curacao, then the new brewery--and now the "Dance School de Beer" for children. Within a few weeks, virtually every child I knew was enrolled in this school. There were many different classes for children, and they seemed to meet all the time.

Frank de Beer was a trim, florid-looking man in his thirties. Like many Dutchmen, he was flax blond and a bit pink from the new-found sunshine of the tropics. An animated small man, he walked, moved, and gestured like a dancer. Every step he took was either long and deliberate or short and deliberate. He insisted that in each dance all the boys should ask all the girls to dance. When we had approached within three feet of the girl of our choice, we were supposed to bow deeply, and ask, "May I have this dance with you?"

The rule was that the girl was not permitted to decline, which still did not mean that the boys could dance with only the girls they wanted. If someone else approached her first, just a second before you did, this then required a swift move to another girl who had not been approached yet, also with a bow. Mr. de Beer explained that such jockeying shouldn't cause embarrassment. "If the young lady of your choice is no longer available, you walk firmly, decisively, gracefully, up to another young lady." Despite his pleas for dignity, there was a certain amount of running to the girls several boys wanted to dance with. Some boys would have to bow three or four times before they were able to find a partner. The girls had to nod and smile but not bow back.

I looked forward to the afternoons in that reddish-colored house with its gingerbread trim, the two white-washed rooms with their parquet floors giving on a breezy veranda. And it felt good to do something with girls without having to talk to them a lot. Mr. de Beer would play a record, and you had to decide quickly what dance was appropriate, make your deep bow, and start dancing. Despite the pressure of these decisions, I liked the school and its atmosphere. It was serious business, but we learned to dance.

Mr. de Beer's favorite dance was the bote, which he pronounced in his Dutch way boatay. Sinuously you stood on one leg, leaned all your weight on that side, and then slowly, sensuously leaned on the other. The aim was to create a flawlessly fluid hip motion, Mr. de Beer explained. He said it was the basic Latin American step and that all the others, the rhumba, the guaracha, the mambo, the merengue, were all based on it.

"Mr. de Beer," said my friend Mundi, a tall Curacaoan boy, a superb dancer, "I've never even heard of the bote." Brash though he sounded, Mundi was actually being more deferential than usual.

"Well," said Mr. de Beer mildly, "We learned it in Amsterdam, and it took us right to the championship. Latin American dancing is very big in Holland right now."

He demonstrated the step all over again. "Gently, smoothly, this must be lithe and controlled," said Mr. de Beer to our class of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, his ever-cheerful voice commanding attention. When the record stopped and we were done with our partner, he made us bow again from the waist and escort the girl all the way to the exact spot against the wall where she had been standing. Another bow, and "Thank you very much for this dance."

Mr. de Beer's brother Nico, tall and light on his feet, roamed the hall, smiling, encouraging, cajoling. Taller than his brother, he had the same flaxen hair but a heavier face. Nico was a stickler for posture. When the brothers introduced a new dance, they would often dance side by side, next to each other, one more supple than the other, and both extend their left arm to hold an imaginary woman with their right. Sometimes Mr. de Beer would whirl Nellie, his assistant, around, a redhead with an upturned nose, her colorful skirts twirling.

Curacao was a dancing culture, but this was something new. The Curacaoans did not need to be taught to dance, but of course many Curacaoan children enrolled in the school. Mr. de Beer was lavish in his praise for their talents but never condescending to the others. He especially stressed the gravity of these occasions, their dignity. And he enjoyed having us all watched by dozens of leisurely staring Curacaoans--men, women, children--all of them peering through the louvered porches around the veranda and occasionally whispering comments through the shutters. Mr. de Beer, fresh from Holland, could not understand some of these hissed remarks in Papiamento from staring boys as the girls swished by, such as "What delicious legs, What sweet thighs, What a luscious little ass," accompanied by a strange slurping sound made with indrawn breath.