I miss dancing, man. All the ways people move in a crowded, sweaty place. Even when clubs felt like hell – I was way in over my head, having drunk too much of the mystery drink from the funny looking man in the bathroom and all I wanted to do was leave. I miss it. Even the times I’d pitifully claw my way from person to person, blocked by the wall of people in the sardine-like club as they subconsciously kept note of that ¾ rhythm, leaving me to suffer in the middle of their sweaty movements. Dancing can allow miracles. The unification of two lovers or strangers, because it doesn’t really matter what they are to each other when they’re both dancing as one. 

Dublin doesn’t have this dance culture. At least not like the one above, the one I experienced in Spain. I get it: guy goes away for a year to a foreign country and comes back enlightened. It’s like Moses going away for ten years and then coming back saying that God picked him. Yet, during my Erasmus experience in Granada, I danced more in ten months than I have in my entire life. Never had I danced so much sober, or while intoxicated to the point of no return. The truth is my state of sobriety didn’t matter. Neither did how densely populated the clubs were: it was a matter of music. 

There are, obviously, some key differences between Dublin and Granada Granada as a city is quite small, but the actual ‘downtown’ is even smaller; everything is nearly a 10 minute walk from each other. In one night out, you could hit 4 to 5 places to dance, all easily accessible from one another. On top of that, these walks aren’t like your average Dublin pilgrimage – the ones on windy November nights through the Liberties when you wonder why you continue to do this everyday. Instead, in Granada, moving between venues was  a warm journey through narrow, pretty Spanish streets. Walls hug you as you pass through the alleys; you can hear the celebrations and cavedrums of humans in the distance.

Even so, such exposure to a lively and late-night dance mindset in Spanish culture made me  quite the righteous prick when it came to choosing where I danced. I suddenly had something that I had never experienced during my early years in LA or recently in Dublin: a high abundance of quality nightlife. I think in Dublin, we take what we can get. If somewhere happens to be open at 2 AM playing some recession pop and still serving drinks, we’re happy to exist at that moment. It’s kind of a supply and demand thing. Low supply of nice places to dance with good music means there’s a high demand for them. All I’m saying is that we are starving. 

But, in Granada, there is a high supply and still, somehow, an even higher demand. During my time there, I was able to be snotty, to pick and choose on a night out. I began to notice the small things like where the bar was placed in relation to the dance floor, or how fast I could escape if necessary. The space and layout of the club gave me requirements to live by. The feeling of the sound system could determine whether I would leave or stay. But of course, the music itself was also a factor. Granada is teeming with variety:  Reggae, cumbia, salsa, techno, rock and jazz. The range of different characters there reflected the special nature of the clubs themselves. There was a pirate-themed bar that played lots of disco and reggae where I was frequently offered swinger sex. At a small music venue turned night-club, a friend of mine danced with a hippie man who kept flicking a bag of LSD in his face on the dancefloor. It was all a part of the beautiful ambiance that made Granada. 

I don’t think I realised how lucky I was in Granada. Only now, back in Dublin, am I realising that I don’t have this privilege anymore. And because of this absence, I’m not dancing anywhere near as much as I want to. I find myself just taking whatever it is I can get one of the rare nights out that I find the courage to imbibe Dublin’s hollow dance culture. Even the literal feeling of dancing here seems different. The unavailability of clubs almost reflects how shy and reserved people are when they dance. It’s almost cliquey, like: “I’ll dance here and you dance all the way over there. Mind ya fuckin business.” 

Maybe I sound like a whiny boy who’s just mad because he isn’t in the know. Maybe it boils down to the fact that I don’t know where is good and where isn’t, and I’m really just sour about not being invited. But that’s exactly my point. In Granada, and many other places in the world, you didn’t need to be in the exclusive circle of knowledge of where to dance and where not to. It was open to everyone. And I think that’s the very nature of dancing: everyone should be allowed to do it. There’s no invitation or exclusion, just an open invitation to come and boogie if you feel like it. 

Where is the love? I cry and moan to Dublin. Where is the passion? I sing from the bottom of my weak heart. I’m not saying it all lies in Granada, or that it is completely gone in Dublin. There has to be some good here – maybe I’m just too conceited and judgmental to see it right under my nose. All I’m saying is that I miss an open dancing culture. Maybe a sudden revolution will come along, liberating the scared bodies of Dublin. Saving me having to spend my last year at Trinity at Pawn Shop on a Thursday – or, musically malnourished and depraved as a last resort, upstairs at Doyle’s – when I have an itch to boogie.