Dancing Through Life

Book excerpt: A warm and encouraging self-help book that draws inspiration and motivation from ballroom dancing. Precisely because the dance floor stands apart from the everyday world, allowing dancers to play, experiment and take on new roles, it also serves as a stage for human behavior. Antoinette Benevento, a former national ballroom dancing champion and co-owner of Fred Astaire Dance Studios, has been a student of that stage for 25 years. She has discovered that getting out on the dance floor is a powerful and empowering metaphor for living fully in all realms of life. Some of the tenets Antoinette Benevento lives, dances, and teaches by: -Persistence is a form of beauty -Give yourself permission to begin again--and again and again -If you're not willing to risk falling, you'll never learn to walk (or dance) -Desire is the energy that moves us forward in dance and in life -To dance well and to live fully, body and soul need to work together Building on the ballroom dancing craze that has swept the country, including the popularity of "Dancing with the Stars", this illuminating and highly readable book shows that what you learn on the dance floor can help you dance through life. ANTOINETTE BENEVENTO is co-owner of and National Training Director for the Fred Astaire Dance Studios and a former national ballroom dancing champion. EDWIN DOBB is a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, and has written for numerous other national publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and Discover.