Sammi: So, I guess start off by just introducing yourself and talking a little about yourself to get us started?
Meg: I guess I can give you dance background?
S: We can do that, yup!
Meg: My name is Meg Perry, I’ve been dancing since I was three so, wow, that’s… twenty years now? I started in a studio when I was three learning ballet and tap and jazz, and I went through and did hip-hop and funk and all these other styles growing up, until I got to highschool when I quit all that and I just did dance team at school, which is not at all what I loved. Girls are mean, that’s all I have to say. Between highschool and college, I went on a cruise and they had ballroom dance lessons.
S: On a cruise?
Meg: On a cruise, yeah! So, of course I went, because dancing, but everyone there was 80 years old and no one would dance with me, because I didn’t show up with a partner. And it was so disheartening, I couldn’t get any of my cousins to join me. So when I went to college, and I discovered swing dancing, and how anyone would dance with anybody, and you didn’t need to show up with a partner, and you didn’t even need to dance with a partner – you could dance by yourself, it’s like a whole new experience to dance by yourself, even just to the same music and the same bands as the people dancing as a couple – I just love the versatility of swing. We took photos in tap shoes today – I think that tap is just like that forgotten cousin of swing and it just belongs so well, they mesh so well together, and I love that.
S: Awesome! I think that’s pretty… pretty good. So, did you ever imagine that you would have found swing dancing, or would you have just stuck with the ones that you had learned as a kid?
Meg: I definitely did not see swing dance coming. It took me a LOT to get into it. Literally, the swing dance team at my school, I was tutored by the president, I just happened to sit next to a member in a class about jazz music, and just all this other stuff; there were probably about ten people it took to convince me to go even once, but after the first lesson I was hooked. It took a long time to get there, I would have never guessed I would do something like this.
S: Nice! So, you mentioned jazz music. What’s your favorite part about dancing to music like that?
Meg: I think jazz is just… there’s so much of it. I already used the word versatile, but I’m going to again. You can do anything with it, and it’s never the same. You never have to dance it the same. Or you could dance the same way to 18,000 different songs and it won’t look the same, even if your feet do the same things, and your arms do the same things.
S: That is really true. We took pictures of you dancing by yourself in tap, but you also mentioned partner dancing. What’s the difference between dancing by yourself, or, what’s your favorite part of dancing with a partner vs. dancing by yourself?
Meg: I think the communication. You have such an opportunity to share creativity. I love when you have that one hand connection and you’re just solo jamming together, and you can steal each other’s ideas and then throw them into your closed dance and things like that. You’re talking the whole time, just not with your mouths. I love that about partner dancing.
S: In terms of partner dancing, do you lead or follow? Or both?
Meg: I do both. I’ve followed for a little over four years, and I’ve led for a little over three. Just this past year or so, my friend and I have started learning how to switch and do lead steals and things like that, so that’s probably my favorite. ‘Cause you never know what’s gonna happen.
