A lot of people don’t know this about me, but I used to take Lambada lessons. That’s right, I’m a master in the art of the forbidden dance.
It was the mid-80’s. I was in 3rd grade, slightly before the Lambada craze really hit.
In the dark, damp basement of an abandoned church, my fellow Lambadadeers and I struggled to feel the flow of the dance in our young bodies. Little did we know that we need not struggle. The rhythm was going to get us on its own.
Well, it was either the rhythm or Enrita, our dance instructor.
Enrita was a one-eyed Spanish woman who grew up on the outskirts of Durham, North Carolina. I guess, to be fair, Durham is one big outskirt, but Enrita, she grew up on the part of the skirt that was pretty far out there. (Had it been a hoop skirt, she’d have lived on the hoop part, which is, of course, the part furthest away from the main (top) area of the skirt.)
Anyways, all Enrita and her 17 brothers and sisters had to do with their time was hula hoop. They made the hula hoops out of old hoop skirts. Eventually, something clicked in Enrita’s head. She realized the sensual nature of hula hooping and understood that she could transfer this finding into a different art form: Lambada.
And so she did.
And somewhere along the way she lost an eye.
And then she opened a sketchy dance studio where third graders with weird parents could learn sexual dances.
It’s probably a good thing that place burned down or else Enrita might have had some explaining to do to the authorities. I don’t exactly know which authorities deal with illegal children’s lambada classes, but I’d wager there’s a task force somewhere devoted to it.
Still, I miss Enrita and the Lambada.
But of course, since the Lambada is forbidden, I never do it anymore.
Or do I?
Woohaha…