Know your professor: The dancing librarian

Maria E. Kallukaren presents a more fun side to the educators in the UAE.

Teacher: Catherine Besly
Designation: Faculty Librarian at the Integrated Learning Centre
Institute: Higher Colleges of Technology, Sharjah

I love: The Lindy Hop

Now excuse me... what is that?

It's what you see Catherine Besly doing with her teacher and partner Des Scott-Sawyer in the pictures.

Besly grew up believing she had two left feet. "I didn't think I could dance." (You can almost hear the childhood wail!) But then under a very patient teacher in Australia, she learnt rock 'n' roll. And voila! "I have a bronze medal," she says.

Some four months ago, she got the opportunity to come to Dubai.

"I immediately started looking for a dance teacher; I discovered there was someone teaching the Lindy Hop," she says.

One class with Des Scott-Sawyer, who teaches at the Dubai Hilton Creek, and she was hooked.

"Although still a beginner in this style, I am happily obsessed."

Why do I love it?

"It's good healthy fun, it makes my heart sing. I love the music of the 1940s. You can dance Lindy Hop to a lot of rock 'n' roll and contemporary music."

The pluses:
- "I get to meet people from all walks of life and nationalities who share a common interest in dance."

- Besly is off to Sweden next year for an annual dance workshop called Herrang.

"We have lessons for four-five hours in the morning and dance for four-five hours in the night. And I just can't wait. There are people from all over the world - and this time from Dubai."

What does the lady with the dancing shoes say?

 "A librarian is no longer an old-fashioned, keep-quiet kind of person. We engage young minds, encourage them to think critically about their studies. There is an element of fun, but the work is serious business.

After all these young UAE national men and women are the future of this country."

What is the Lindy Hop?

It's a form of swing dance that began in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s in African American communities and evolved into jitterbug in the rock 'n' roll era of the 1950s.

Numerous variations of the dance remain popular today - the Jive, West Coast Swing, Continental Rock 'n' Roll, Ceroc. "But the original Lindy Hop itself is the best in my opinion," says Besly.

"The dance is spontaneous, at the same time demands a lot of concentration between your partner and yourself, it's like holding a conversation between your partner and you. As one gets more experienced, your partner even throws you into the air.

"But no one is throwing ME into the air. I have my feet firmly on the ground, thank you very much."