Dance...the Night Away

Hardly a Second Life day goes by without some dancing taking place. It's a phenomenon of note in SL that even the most nonathletic of us will happily get up and boogie until the wee small hours of one of SL's daily mornings. My friends and I hang out in Linden Land at the Balloon Tour in Ambleside, where the ironic thing is that there is neither a balloon nor a tour currently available. Even more ironic - or perhaps tragic - is the fact that the Newbie Introduction Pack handed out to the poor souls who join us in this self-chosen hell includes a LM to the non-balloon tour.

But on the upside, here are the two really fun things that you have there: A large platform that can fit lots of people, and an endless supply of fresh meat... sorry, new people... who are looking for things to do.


Enter one of SL's one-woman dance machines, Willa Wycliffe. Willa is kitted out to be the perfect hostess for a dance party at any time and in any. She (a) has a chimera she wears that folks can click on to dance, and (b) a web link in her profile that folks can click for music. Ergo, a dance machine!

Frequently I'm there with Willa and my other special friends, Merry Felwitch, mtd1952 Timeless, and Mony Markova, dancing our asses off until Willa falls asleep at the keyboard (Note to fans of abbreviations: FAAK = "falling asleep at the keyboard" or "fell asleep at the keyboard.")

Last night was no exception. Willa, Merry and I were joined by Jahmon Johin and Drumby Camel, along with the occasional passers-by. There's something about dancing and talking that makes Second Life special.

Folks of a literary bent might want to read - or re-read - Nikos Kazantsakis' Zorba the Greek to get a feel for the passion that can be behind dancing. For Zorba, the dance was a way of directing both his pain and his happiness; a physical catharsis of psychological tensions.

Maybe the same is true for some of us in Second Life.