60 Before 60 Project: #29 - Dance at a Silent Disco
This experience made it onto my 60 Before 60 Project totally by accident. It was one of those situations that just presented itself and given my new attitude I'm trying to develop of saying "yes", I thought why not give this a try.
While travelling on the Alaskan Cruise with my daughter, one of the activities that the cruise ship offered was to attend what they called a “hush party” one night. I have since found out that it is often more popularly called a silent disco.
It sounded like this might be interesting to try so off we went.
First, let’s start with what a silent disco is.
A silent disco is a dance party where everyone wears wireless headphones instead of all listening to the same music through a speaker system. At our event, there were two DJ’s each playing a different gendre of music. One played well known pop dance tunes while the other focused more on latin dance music.
Once we had our headphones on and over our ears, we could switch channels between the two DJ’s and listen / dance to whichever music you preferred.
This was so much fun!
First, I can’t remember the last time I danced. It was probably at a wedding a few years back so this was just great to get out and hit the dance floor again.
Secondly, this was hilarious to watch. At one point in the night, I took off my headset and just watched. Half the dance crowd was shouting and motioning the letters YMCA while the other half danced some type of salsa. Everyone was singing their hearts out but if you were just watching, there wasn't a note of music to be heard.
Even though we all knew how possibly ridiculously it looked for anyone not connected to a headset, for some reason I noticed that nobody seemed self-conscious. It was almost like we had our own personal party going on and it didn’t really matter what other people thought.
I also discovered this gave you a sense of freedom and liberation that can sometimes be hard to find in traditional dance parties. Sort of like singing in the shower or dancing to music on your own while doing chores.
Since I’ve got home, I have actually found myself on the odd occasion putting on my ear buds and turning on some music and dancing by myself. Sort of like having my own personal silent disco. And dancing is so good for you as you age. Research has discovered that dancing can significantly improve your strength, endurance and balance.
So if you get the chance to try a silent disco I strongly suggest you give it a try. It will likely be an experience you won’t quickly forget. If not, why not put on a headset, crank up the tunes and just dance!
