Dance like noone is watching

Putting my rucksack down and settling in one place for kind of a normal life for almost three months allowed me to enjoy the routine cycle of the entertainment options of a normal city life. What I had missed a lot during tripping around everywhere had been dancing. Dancing like I was fifteen again, at a school party again, alone on the dancefloor again, jumping around for Limp Bizkit and having the time of my life again while my peers stand in the shadows and sip liquid courage before giving the rhythm a chance.

The clubs and pubs of Val d'Isère offered me all the options for unleashing the dance beast inside me. Each of them made me pour out gallons of sweat per session. Be it dancing silly and singing along for Y.M.C.A in the nightclub on the 21st of every month or be it floating trance-like in the electronic rhythms, bouncing and undulating in a growing amplitude while the tunes gather speed and energy over the hours, carrying my mind away to another universe; be it Bomfunk MC's and the rest of the dance rock from ten years ago that make me do backwards longjumps in random directions with my hands flying everywhere and my hair in my eyes (and eventually land on the wrong spot and put one foot through the Satuday night fever style blinking dancefloor).

As a cherry on top of the cake of a long day on the ski slopes, half way downhill there's a legendary nightclub (or should I say dayclub? afternoonclub?) that closes its doors at five in the afternoon, finishing work at the same time with the ski lifts. Skiing across the last hill separating me from La Folie Douce presented me with an incredible setting. I saw hundreds, maybe thousands of people jammed on the sunny terrasse of this high altitude bar, all modelling your average fashion skiwear that might not pass as normal in a normal city: outrageously colorful combinations such as fluorescent yellows, pinks, blues, greens and violets, often all together on the same person, with neither sex spared; almost invariable owl-tan from the ski mask; often topless, not limited to one sex either. While the DJ is playing the popular club tunes such as "I just wanna daaaaaance, I don't even caaaaaare" and "Hello, o o o o o o!", the very feminin blond male singer on the bar provides the vocal, a real life violinist on the balcony improvises a new dimension for the sound and the drummer on the second balcony adds yet another level of background. The rough wooden tables are obviously built with the regular destructive dancing on them in mind. Heavy ski boots glue all the feet firmly to the ground, making jumping impossible so the tired sporty crowds simply stomp in extasy on every conceivable flat surface, relishing the after-effects of an adrenaline-filled day, of the hot sun, the music and the rush of emotion amplified by the crowds.


Tuesday nights were for moshing and crowd surfing in the English pub. With some annoying exceptions such as an occasional Ms.Pretty or Mr.Muscle doggedly guarding the ground under their feet, choosing to be seen rather that feel the unity of the masses swaying in collective psychedelic euphoria. Unlike the habitual consistency of the crowd in Frenchier venues, this one was mostly made up of British snowboarders who were big, strong and violent enough that I could afford to regularly launch myself in a random direction with eyes closed without the fear of causing any deaths.

Mullit is my new favorite rockband. They gave their show in pub Morris usually at Tuesday nights, playing all the good old pieces of all my favorite rock bands over the years in the course of one evening, ranging from Sweet to Oasis to Limp Bizkit to Prodigy. They always put so much heart into doing their job that at the latest 20 minutes into the concert, sweat jets start flying both ways between the manically jumping public and the enthusiastic band, creating a kind of cross-fire zone in the narrow "no man's land" safety zone. On one lucky occasion they played Friday night as well, permitting me to jump up and down and back and forth into my birthday. I took it as a good omen for my new year.

Often I dressed in bouncy running shoes and a black dress with two tiny pockets to shake off the work stress on a day off. My home was as nearby as everything in Val d'Isère and the only necessary treasure I needed to carry along was a lonely key - kept safe inside my shoe - and sometimes my phone. The latter had already hopped out of my pocket while I myself jumped towards the roof and it took a few moments' effort to locate it and peel it off the floor while somebody's foot was stomping on it. Too big to stuff into my shoe, the only other place I could keep it was in my bra, where I efficiently drowned it to death in my sweat. However, a petty misadventure of this kind was no reason for worry, as the years spent in the circle of computer people has taught me how to fix soaked electronics. The secret is to wait until it dries and, hurrah! it will revive in no time. It did.