This is my dance map since December: this is where I’ve been and what I’ve danced.

I’ve danced more than this. I didn’t count all the latin dances I tried in a week long festival in Tofo, neither have I written down all the traditional African dances I danced in Maputo, Ponta d’Oro, Tofo and Sweden.

I haven’t counted dancing on my own; I do that almost daily.

Gothenburg impressed me; during the weekend I stayed there, I was spoiled with music and movement.

Köln offered a crammed lindy floor in an old cinema. Köln also offered a sweet 5 Rythms meditation which my friend brought me to.

Vilnius has my favourite lindy hop space of them all: an old, Soviet prison with white tiles, colours and fairy lights. Vilnius also offered me the most inclusive dance event I’d ever been to a rainy weekday night with folk dancing. In a full and sweaty room, violins were tearing their strings apart as happy feet were stomping down the old floor. Every dance was a new one, many with complicated games and partnerswitching. I had neither seen nor tried most of them, but I asked and was asked to dance and play despite all that, quickly finding my way on the dance floor. The regular dancers would include us beginners and we all had fun together.

Krákow was the only place where I was lucky enough to find a fusion even on the one night that I spent there, and how I craved it! Fusion is becoming my favourite way of partner dancing as it lets me explore connection before technique. And connection is what dancing is about.

There have been a lot of odd dance studios in murky industrial areas, almost scary places that have required a dedicated search, maybe even asking around, to be found. There have been a lot of basements, a lot of shoes and jackets crammed into small, overflowing hallways; inside there is always music and laughter. Back rooms, re-purposed rooms that we fill with sound, lights, movement and emotion. People gather after work even on the rainiest of Thursdays to share themselves through dance.

As I travel, explore and am welcomed into these spaces, I feel happy and grateful. I feel meaning.

…

(This story told in pictures.)