What dance do you like best?

Did you know the hoop dance is the most requested? And why? And does it matter why? The hoop dance could mean we are all connected. The dance could mean, as it is performed in all its complication (but seamless),that it is just as difficult and natural as the viewer is. How far apart do we stand from one another while we watch the hoop dance? Just a hoop's distance?

Sarah and I watched a hoop dance in Vancouver, B.C. in June. We stumbled upon it after all day walking around the city in a lot of rain and overcast. We had been down to the beach and were wind worn and giddy and the dancers were energetic and nervous and ready to dance. One man (the adult) was dancing so hard he was making the platform move. He was breathless after each dance, talking into the microphone to explain the dance or introduce another.

And then there was the hoop dance. Sarah's favorite. I'm sortof torn between the hoop dance and the jingle dress dance. A girl dances both. And we talk about school and hoop dancing and watching dancing and wondering whether we could do it, how it would feel, secretly imagining ourselves there, hoops wrapped around our legs, behind our necks. Or jumping with the tin sound of tiny cones falling ontop of themselves.