And loving it!!
Context: one of room mates is into hip-hop, house and the like. She has been involved in a lot of activities in her home town in the US, she has been in touch with the hip hop community wherever she has travelled, and now she wanted to do the same here. Since I've been wanting to try some sort of street dance for a long time now, I tagged along when she mentioned she would go to a class at a dance studio here. And it was awesome!!
More context: my room mate is ethnically Chinese, so she fit in quite well in the world of Mustang Dance, which is the studio where we went to. Because everyone (and I seriously mean everyone!!!) was Chinese! And me! :) I have not felt so white or so special in my whole life! Plus, being a foreigner was a definite plus, so everyone wanted to talk to us and see why we are there. Add to that the fact that we got there early and got to see some of the previous classes, and how terribly good those people were, and you have a fairly intimidated Anutza :)
However, the experience turned out to be really really awesome! The teacher was this 25 year old guy who was actually an excellent teacher. He taught a rather beginners routine (for us :)), but he also mentioned lots about house history, why it is called house (it's actually the name of the club where it all started - Warehouse), how it came about and stuff like that. Needless to say I had no idea of any of this and things made so much more sense afterwards!
As for the dance itself...it's so much like the latin dances that I was stunned! Has a lot (and I seriously mean a lot!!!) of salsa steps and beats. A lot was recognizable also from zumba stuff (though there, probably zumba got the house steps and not the other way around). What differs is just the feeling you have with it and at times a bit the rythm, but even those where much more to my liking than I had anticipated! It had lots of energy to it, but also smoothness. It was quite intense (I was sweating like mad half way through already :)), but it was really fun!
And I guess what made it more enjoyable also was the fact that the people were so so nice! Very good atmosphere, lots of laughing, very welcoming and really good dancers! I really liked what they were doing with their bodies...they were very loose and relaxed but in a controlled way that made the dancing very smooth. I enjoyed it terribly! And gained serious respect for house dancing!
So at this moment, I am seriously considering going to some more house lessons while I am still in KL. Who would have ever thought? :)