Come two-stepping to a country rhythm in Warsaw
I didn't want to point out her generalization - just because I'm American doesn't mean I should know how to dance to country music - because it was accurate. I grew up in Wisconsin, where country music dominates the soundtrack to most everyone's life story.
I've spent time in bars with names like Club 40 (because it's on Highway 40) or the Outhouse or the Valley Tavern, where local bands with names like Hickory played country standards. I've sipped Leinenkugel's beer in Club 40 and watched a country music channel - the first four videos took place in taverns; the fifth was about a guy's pickup truck. I've seen old potbellied farmers with gnarled hands and broken backs nimbly dancing a polka or waltz to a country tune.
In that time I should have learned something about how to line dance or two-step or not look stupid wearing a cowboy hat.
Instead, it took me 35 years, a change of venue - Central Europe of all places - and a Polish instructor before commands like "grapevine," "jazz box," and "heel-ball-change" meant something to me. I took a "Strefa Country" (Country Zone) dance lesson with about 15 Poles who meet each Thursday at the Osrodek Kultury Ochoty (OKO) in Warsaw.
•••
Country-style dancing has been performed ever since some form of country music has been played, although the popularity of today's form skyrocketed in the early 1990s when Billy Ray Cyrus sang "Achy Breaky Heart" and turned it into an anomaly - the most liked and, at the same time, the most hated song in America.
After that, the line-dancin', boot-scootin', two-steppin' cowboys came out of the closet, or the corral, or wherever the hell they had been residing, and started dancin'. (Note: They also started shortenin' the suffix "-ing" to "-in'.")
This phenomenon transcended borders, like an airborne disease, infecting people in as far-flung places as the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the Czech Republic, Poland.
However, country music's rung on the cultural ladder of acceptance in Poland is below that of a much scoffed-about musical form, according to Karolina Gainsbourg, a university student and a country dance student. She became interested in country music while in Missouri in the United States earlier this year.
"I would tell none of my friends that I like country music. It's worse than Disco Polo," she said. "Nobody in Warsaw would admit he likes Disco Polo."
However, it's similar to Disco Polo in that its support base is largely rural - shunned by the big-city folk who consider it, and the people who like it, rather simple and stupid.
Kind of like in the United States.
But Warsaw has a problem that the United States doesn't: If you bother to take dance lessons, there's no place to go with your newfound talent. No clubs cater to the fringe-jacket-wearing fans. Some saloons might play some country, but most establishments are only concerned with feeding and watering the masses. Except for the discos, and then it's disco music.
"Where do you go dance?" I asked.
"The U.S.," Karolina said.
•••
If that's too far away or too expensive, you could always try the Strefa Country dance lessons with Robert Roswadowski at the Ochota cultural center.
At a recent class I attended, Robert began with a warm-up - some sort of dance in which the participants shuffle about. Their feet wiggle and spasm like a dying fish at the end of their legs.
After that, Robert launched into a detailed instruction of another dance. Robert's wife, Ewa, came up to my wife, Sandra, and me and encouraged us to join in. "Applejack," she said in a tone which seemed to indicate that given the name I should automatically know the dance.
"Applejack?" I said, thinking alcoholic beverage.
"Yes. Applejack." This simple method of repeating the name didn't help but watching did.
Then came the 16-step and the eight-step polkas. "This should be easy," said Sandra, who grew up going to polka dances on the weekends with her grandma. I fumbled through and actually picked up on it as we went along. Robert repeated the tricky stuff just enough so that I began to grasp it before he threw on the music, at which time my brain, able to deal with only one thing at one time, convulsed and jettisoned the newly learned steps.
After the 16-step variety, I figured an eight-step polka would be easy, like going from pluckin' a 12-string guitar to a six-stringer. However, I lack any sort of rhythm or understanding of dance, so eight steps are just as difficult as 16.
We ended the lesson with a line dance to Hank Williams' "Honky-Tonk Blues." This was the type of country music I liked - the old stuff by Hank and Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. This was good country.
Right about then Ewa imported a couple of plastic cups of beer from the cafe two floors below. I was right, this was good country, just the tonic for the crying-in-your beer times when your spouse leaves you, your dog up and dies, and you total your pickup.
Formacja Taneczna Strefa Country meets at 8 p.m. Thursdays at the Osrodek Kultury Ochoty, ul. Grojecka 75, room 20. The cost is zl. 10 per lesson. The lessons are very relaxed, and the participants have a good time. For more information, contact Robert Roswadowski at 0601-24-2236.
I've spent time in bars with names like Club 40 (because it's on Highway 40) or the Outhouse or the Valley Tavern, where local bands with names like Hickory played country standards. I've sipped Leinenkugel's beer in Club 40 and watched a country music channel - the first four videos took place in taverns; the fifth was about a guy's pickup truck. I've seen old potbellied farmers with gnarled hands and broken backs nimbly dancing a polka or waltz to a country tune.
In that time I should have learned something about how to line dance or two-step or not look stupid wearing a cowboy hat.
Instead, it took me 35 years, a change of venue - Central Europe of all places - and a Polish instructor before commands like "grapevine," "jazz box," and "heel-ball-change" meant something to me. I took a "Strefa Country" (Country Zone) dance lesson with about 15 Poles who meet each Thursday at the Osrodek Kultury Ochoty (OKO) in Warsaw.
•••
Country-style dancing has been performed ever since some form of country music has been played, although the popularity of today's form skyrocketed in the early 1990s when Billy Ray Cyrus sang "Achy Breaky Heart" and turned it into an anomaly - the most liked and, at the same time, the most hated song in America.
After that, the line-dancin', boot-scootin', two-steppin' cowboys came out of the closet, or the corral, or wherever the hell they had been residing, and started dancin'. (Note: They also started shortenin' the suffix "-ing" to "-in'.")
This phenomenon transcended borders, like an airborne disease, infecting people in as far-flung places as the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the Czech Republic, Poland.
However, country music's rung on the cultural ladder of acceptance in Poland is below that of a much scoffed-about musical form, according to Karolina Gainsbourg, a university student and a country dance student. She became interested in country music while in Missouri in the United States earlier this year.
"I would tell none of my friends that I like country music. It's worse than Disco Polo," she said. "Nobody in Warsaw would admit he likes Disco Polo."
However, it's similar to Disco Polo in that its support base is largely rural - shunned by the big-city folk who consider it, and the people who like it, rather simple and stupid.
Kind of like in the United States.
But Warsaw has a problem that the United States doesn't: If you bother to take dance lessons, there's no place to go with your newfound talent. No clubs cater to the fringe-jacket-wearing fans. Some saloons might play some country, but most establishments are only concerned with feeding and watering the masses. Except for the discos, and then it's disco music.
"Where do you go dance?" I asked.
"The U.S.," Karolina said.
•••
If that's too far away or too expensive, you could always try the Strefa Country dance lessons with Robert Roswadowski at the Ochota cultural center.
At a recent class I attended, Robert began with a warm-up - some sort of dance in which the participants shuffle about. Their feet wiggle and spasm like a dying fish at the end of their legs.
After that, Robert launched into a detailed instruction of another dance. Robert's wife, Ewa, came up to my wife, Sandra, and me and encouraged us to join in. "Applejack," she said in a tone which seemed to indicate that given the name I should automatically know the dance.
"Applejack?" I said, thinking alcoholic beverage.
"Yes. Applejack." This simple method of repeating the name didn't help but watching did.
Then came the 16-step and the eight-step polkas. "This should be easy," said Sandra, who grew up going to polka dances on the weekends with her grandma. I fumbled through and actually picked up on it as we went along. Robert repeated the tricky stuff just enough so that I began to grasp it before he threw on the music, at which time my brain, able to deal with only one thing at one time, convulsed and jettisoned the newly learned steps.
After the 16-step variety, I figured an eight-step polka would be easy, like going from pluckin' a 12-string guitar to a six-stringer. However, I lack any sort of rhythm or understanding of dance, so eight steps are just as difficult as 16.
We ended the lesson with a line dance to Hank Williams' "Honky-Tonk Blues." This was the type of country music I liked - the old stuff by Hank and Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. This was good country.
Right about then Ewa imported a couple of plastic cups of beer from the cafe two floors below. I was right, this was good country, just the tonic for the crying-in-your beer times when your spouse leaves you, your dog up and dies, and you total your pickup.
Formacja Taneczna Strefa Country meets at 8 p.m. Thursdays at the Osrodek Kultury Ochoty, ul. Grojecka 75, room 20. The cost is zl. 10 per lesson. The lessons are very relaxed, and the participants have a good time. For more information, contact Robert Roswadowski at 0601-24-2236.
