The great nightclub tragedy at E2 hit home, although I never been to the
club. This is because I live in Chicago and saw the news stories about
the disaster in the last week. In the 1990s, I went salsa-clubbing at
places like Excalibur,
Club 720, and Inta's, all on the Near North Side of Chicago. Before the
tragedy, I thought that all of this nightclub dancing was innocent and
you don't have to fear about being trampled to death. Now with this,
and the other similar tragedy that happened at Rhode Island, I wonder when
all of the innocence of dancing at a nightclub will come back again. It
will, of course. Remember the days of disco? Remember when the colorful
lights and the disco ball and the hustle of the 1970s represented the
de-stresser of the world's ills and the rise of innocence? Remember when
Danny Terrio and John
Travolta strutted their disco stuff on the dance floor? Exciting, isn't
it. I wish all of this would come back, even though the Dancing Illini
had its own version of the retro-hustle craze around 1990 or so.
I won't let the two tragedies keep me from dancing in a
nightclub. To do so means one will be left out of the joy of dancing.
I feel very sorry for all of those who died at E2, and hope incidents
like this will never happen again.
Charles Smith
Former Dancing Illini member
(linndennyy@yahoo.com)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 28 2003 - 09:22:38 CST