So You Think You Can't Dance

Lion's GateAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below"Courtney, you've got to stop fidgeting behind Twitch," a silver-haired Englishman bellows, hands cupped around his mouth like a bullhorn. "I want smiles!" The six dancers I've been watching stomp and slide across an L.A. soundstage all morning nod obligingly at the choreographer's request and begin their routine once more, their grins so convincing that you'd never guess this wasn't the first take. This is the last day of filming for the first So You Think You Can Dance? fitness DVD, and the stars—Courtney Galiano, Stephen "Twitch" Boss, Katee Shean, Dmitry Chaplin, Lauren Gottlieb, and Travis Wall, former finalists from the Fox hit show—are running through the grand finale, which combines a medley of moves that they'll also present in step-by-step tutorials.
More From ELLE"You should dance along with us from the sidelines," suggests Dmitry, the snake-hipped Russian with a penchant for baring his chest, as he cha-chas past me during a break. I try desperately to shrink into the background. It's not just that I'm afraid that the tangle of cables and light stands and human traffic around me will trip me up, nor am I simply reluctant to shake my groove thing in a room full of professional groove-thing-shakers. I have a bigger problem: I'm absolutely convinced that I can't dance.
I've always been an avid music lover, but I tend to be moved by it only in the emotional—not physical—sense. For years, I've loitered in the corners of clubs and parties, nursing drinks and faking nonchalance while I wait for friends to return from the dance floor; at concerts I rarely do more than tap my toes, stoically enduring knocks and blows from other people's more liberated butts and elbows. I have danced at a wedding or two, once champagne has rendered me insensible to shame—and wow, it's been fun. But moments like those, when I don't care that my rhythmic expertise might be best compared to that of Seinfeld's Elaine Benes, are few and far between. Mostly, I keep my two left feet planted firmly on the ground.
So what am I doing, a few weeks after visiting the SYTYCD set, in a Manhattan dance studio, preparing to take a swing class? Well, for starters, I've become swept up in a cultural obsession: I was among the 22.5 million who tuned in to the eighth Dancing With the Stars season premiere in March; I think America's Best Dance Crew might be the best thing on MTV since Martha Quinn; and I'm far more excited than a grown woman should be about the upcoming Fame and Footloose remakes. Watching all of these effervescently bendy people has made me come to the conclusion that it's high time I got over being such a wallflower, and witnessing Dmitry et al. strutting their stuff for the fitness DVD made me wonder if perhaps dance might be a way to jazz up my exercise routine (or lack thereof).
My biggest hang-up about going to the gym is that it bores me senseless: Those treadmill TVs give me motion sickness, so I'm left with nothing to do but stare dully at the slow-moving digital distance-tracker and fantasize about cheeseburgers. Dancing, however, engages the mind as much as it does the body: The process of learning new steps involves parts of the brain that control imitation, empathy, quick decision-making, coordination, spatial judgment, and rhythm, sparking the production of fresh connections between nerve cells. And not only does this improve memory and mental agility, but a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that people who dance frequently also reduce their risk of developing dementia by 76 percent (doing weekly crosswords will only get you 47 percent). Add this to the fact that dancing, like any aerobic exercise, unleashes a flood of feel-good endorphins and can burn just as many calories as jogging or swimming, and you've got a pretty compelling argument to get out there and bust a move. I mean, if something can make me happier, skinnier, and smarter, why wouldn't I want to try it?
However, swing doesn't go so well. There aren't enough men to go around (ah, such is life), so I end up paired with a fiftysomething woman with a severe bob and clammy hands. As the instructor bids us to "rock step, triple step, triple step," we trample all over each other's feet and avoid eye contact. The footwork is fairly simple, but it nags at my brain like a complex mathematical equation: I just can't get it. I feel better when I remember that Twitch, Courtney, and Travis told me that ballroom (which includes all the partner dances such as swing, waltz, tango, etc.) was the most difficult genre they've tackled. Even someone as preternaturally elegant as Paulina Porizkova looked utterly oafish during her first fox-trot lesson on Dancing With the Stars. Unfortunately, choreographed dance requires a combination of things I've never been good at: coordination and short-term memory. On the upside, I find that I'm so busy concentrating on the steps that I forget to be self-conscious. Thanks to my remedial ineptitude, I barely break a sweat in swing (although once you get cooking, the dance can burn about 235 calories an hour), which is a little disappointing for someone hoping to get a proper workout.
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