I remember dancing to "Every Little Step" by Bobby Brown when I was four years old. I remember the house parties my mother would throw, the veneer wood of our towering entertainment system, and I remember the synth percussion and keys of the late 80's on that track. Later I danced in my room to a collection of cassettes by Salt N' Peppa, Janet Jackson and Toni Braxton. In third grade I won the daycare talent show by cartwheeling to "Emotions" by Mariah Carey. By sixth grade I was voguing to the Immaculate Collection and innocently told my teacher I wanted Madonna's Erotica album I saw on MTV--this memory is so vivid because it seemed completely left field when she responded disapprovingly by saying, "that sounds a little sexy." She knew something I didn't and I filed it in my brain under, "Undefined Words Unsuitable for Polite Company." I was obsessed with Spice Girls deep into high school, long after they disbanded. Missy Elliot introduced me to hip hop and twerking before it was called twerking. In college I became a hippie and discovered not only underwear dance parties but also the group/partner swing/swap of contra dancing. My friend Simon and I once drove a sleepless 24 hours from Duluth, MN to New York City only to arrive, change wardrobes, and whirl our dancing selves into the middle of an inert too-cool-for-school crowd at the Brooklyn Bowl
New Year's Eve several years ago I was dancing naked in a kitchen apron when I met Colin Kopp, the creator of this video by Vision the Kid and now friend/collaborator; we were at the edge of civilization in the UP of Michigan with some of our best, and mutual, friends celebrating a new year in a small cabin on Lake Superior.
I have never been happier and more excited to be alive than when dancing. This video was filmed in slow motion and their process blew me away--I had never seen my body in such minute detail while overcome with the simple joy of movement. All I kept saying on my drive home was, "Wow. I love dancing. Wow."