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The dancers join in sudden solidarity, their mirrored movement becoming one beating heart.

I am not the first and certainly not the last to say that I think I was born in the wrong generation.

Now, I say this not in a pretentious music enthusiast way, nor in a vintage fashion fanatic way—what I long for is very specific to one aspect of retro American culture: dance.

I love dance—though I am certainly not very good at it. As a musical theater enjoyer myself, my jaw drops at every rewatch of the West Side Story gymnasium scene, every TikTok my equally theater-obsessed friend sends me from The Outsiders or The Great Gatsby on Broadway, and every Vocal Adrenaline performance in Glee.

My largest dancing hyper fixation lies in Grease, a movie-musical I remember watching with my Dad as a child. I was mesmerized by the way the completely rehearsed dance looked so natural, so mechanical, and yet so full of life.

I long for a day in which dancing is not just done by people who are really good at it. Where people learn and do dances on a whim—where people go to school dances and actually dance.

I watched the dance team perform a perfectly choreographed series of jumps and turns at the assembly as the rest of the student body wished them luck on their way to Nationals. I was mesmerized seeing my friend effortlessly get thrown into the air and join the rest of the group. The individual bodies of each dancer seem to become one being, one pulsing heart. I watched, jealous, knowing they were about to compete with teams somehow much better than they were—much better than I could ever be.

I went home that day, my mind fixated on that dance. On the camp chicness of their costumes and deep purple lipstick, on the animation of the girls’ faces as they performed. I worked on homework late into the night and decided, rather than going to bed, to do an interpretive dance. Three times, I played “Straw Hat and an Old Dirty Hank” by The Barenaked Ladies. I twirled around my living room and imagined myself as that desperate, lovesick farmer chasing after the love of Anne Murray.

I looked in the back window that reflected my image back at me, as if I was in a studio completely surrounded by mirrors. My body awkwardly jerked to the rhythm of the song as my blurry reflection taunted me from the back of the room. I turned around and continued to dance.

I danced as if I was wearing a long poodle skirt, as if I had rehearsed this moment in my bedroom before the long-awaited sock hop. I danced as if I were a 1960s hippie, feeling the ghost of a fringe suede skirt glide across my knees. I danced as if I were at a disco, whipping my suddenly voluminous hair to a rhythm only known to me.

From Jazz club to high school gymnasium, from stage to bedroom, I will always love to dance.