Dancing with Grisha, Part 2: Classmates Demo

Grisha, teaching on his own, is using the women of the class as his demo partners. It is fun to watch my classmates dance beautifully with him. They say they are nervous, but you can't tell.

a
A sashays as only A can. She is cocky and classy and oozes lighthearted, self-mocking grace. She’s a dancer, she’ll tell you. She’s performed ballet and tap and modern and who knows what else. Am I imagining that she said she twirled flaming batons en pointe on the back of a galloping pony suspended by ropes in the Circ de Soleil? I wouldn’t be surprised if she had.

b
Imagine Atlanta in sweltering July. A woman saunters. Her skin gives up a fine sweat. Her joints have melted, her whole body gone soft. She takes one step. ... Another. Lazy and loose and precise all at once. There is nowhere she’d rather be than here in this moment, in her own body, in sweltering July. She thinks of iced tea, of eating a peach. Replace the tea with tequila, and you have B.

c
C giggles. This has nothing to do with Grisha or being nervous. C giggles a lot. She enjoys herself immensely. When you are around her, you enjoy yourself, too. She knows who’s who and what’s what. She likes men and she knows how to keep them in line. She whirls through the demo with Grisha, laughs when she misses a step and kicks him in the shins.

Demos over. Now we dance, Grisha says.