When that excitement peaked the band mellowed out with some old jazz standards to bring us back down to our chairs.

Off to the side, below the stage was a cordoned off space for dancing. Both Bette and I were mesmerized by the variety of people who were spinning around the floor. Some seemed like they were glued together moving so smoothly with perfect, quick and practiced precision. Others danced separately, together but doing their own thing. There was one old gal who wore a sequined vest and heavy makeup. She looked like an aging showgirl while her partner wore a cowboy hat and looked like he enjoyed dancing as much as riding a horse.

Then there was this lone dancer. A young woman right out of the musical, “Cabaret“. She wore white spats on her shoes, baggy trousers with suspenders, a pink blouse and a red golf cap, tipped over one eye. I could almost visualize a pin light following her movements as if no one else was in the “house”.

Bette followed my gaze and said above the band, “She looks like Liza Minnelli.”

I nodded and said, “She’s good.”

After a few dances I saw Liza go to her shoulder bag on a chair and bring out a little tin container. I wondered if she was a druggie and was going to pop a few pills, but no she went to one corner of the dance floor, opened the tin, took out a few pinches and sprinkled it on the floor. Sand? Salt? She did it several times and then proceeded to do a soft shoe. A soft shoe to jazz.

When the other dancers saw her performance, one couple after another dropped out, leaving her alone to do her own thing. It did not even appear that she was aware of their departure because she was off somewhere in La La Land, with very graceful, undulating movements flowing from her feet and her hands until the music ended and she went back to her chair.

Liza was not the only curiosity. There was also another woman doing a solo, although she never touched the dance floor. No. She was wearing a bright yellow sweater and green pants with short curly blue hair and she paraded up and down the aisles with a long, fluffy, purple, feather boa around her neck, swishing it into people’s faces as she walked by. Once in a while a guy would jump up and dance with her on the spot and then go back and sit down. Eventually, other people began to follow her, particularly uninhibited women, all having a great time with their exaggerated gyrations until the band played their last number and took several, well-earned bows.