Saturday Soviet Lagniappe

A rare Saturday post! Had to share this righteous tune, because in the course of all my Eastern European sass exploration this week, it's become my jam for the weekend.

May yours be filled with all the pleasures that disco lights, yachts, underwater chess, 80s bathing suits, dolphins and mustachioed gi-wearing pop singers suggest!

In Soviet TV Land, a disco ball refuge for fallen ballerinas

Continuing my tour through Cold War-era Eastern bloc nations, I’m reporting now from ground zero, Soviet Union state-controlled television. And it’s marvelous!


Welcome to Ритмика, which, if Google translation can be trusted, translates to “Rhythmics,” a half-hour TV fitness show that blends backwater ballet and training camp calisthenics inside a bright white disco ball. It’s a strange animal, this show, and totally worth trying out if you like a) Soviet electronic music, even the chintzy stuff, b) Russian ballerinas and/or pretending to be one (click that link -- girl’s like a real-life Navi, just not blue) and c) testing your choreography-pickup skills. 

Hosted by a young lady who suggests a less-bulky He-Man, these programs are short and sweet, and they have no patience for hand-holding or heavy instruction. She and her leotard-clad troupe of thin-limbed backup exercisers get right to business, and half the fun is following along with their peculiar, oddly elegant combinations. 

It’s not enough to lean from side to side and stretch the adductor muscles, no no. Toss in some flair and feeling and grace, for god’s sake! Add an arm combination and an artful back curl, and maybe some footwork! And don’t forget about your head! What’s it doing? It can’t just be there. Stretch it back, and tilt the chin, and if I have to tell you to keep your chest lifted one more time you may as well not bother coming back.

Meet the Metal Lady

At one time, I thought it was pretty balling (in my obviously, dorkily skewed definition of the word) to be rocking UK workout videos led by an Australian warrior princess on the regular. Even after discovering the King of Iranian Dance, I hadn't fully realized the scope of fitness videos around the globe. That is, until I met the Metal Lady, Hungarian fitness star. [Insert Iron Curtain remark here.]

There she is, leg-curling her gymnast-with-a-boob-job bod high above, I'm guessing, Budapest? She's wearing a killer black and yellow ensemble -- I WANT THOSE KICKS -- and her fluffily-banged yellow ponytail makes her look like She-Ra on holiday. The workout ain't bad either, and the generic synth music only adds to the appeal.

Seeing as I don't speak much Hungarian, I couldn't research much else about this chick, except that she's known as the Metal Lady. And I think that suffices. 

But seriously, you guys, I think her hair has mystical powers. I can't take my eyes off it.

Khordadian, un-snarkable King of Iranian Dance

I have a new favorite person, and it's this man: Khordadian.

Mohammad Khordadian is a hero. Of freedom of expression, of workout videos. An Iranian-born dancer, choreographer and teacher, his story is a real-life, Persian, non-overrated "Footloose," with himself as Kevin Bacon and the Islamic Republic of Iran as all the repressed bumpkins.

In fact, Khordadian's story is so much better than either the new or old "Footloose" in every conceivable way, (music, costumes, accents, villany, sexual orientation), that I think the comparison is unfair, albeit convenient, so I'm gonna drop it right now. This is a man who can wear outfits like that one up there, make videos like the ones below, and remain absolutely un-snarkable.

Khordadian didn't only dare to dance; he dared to make Persian dance workout videos. He was a taxi driver in Tehran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After that, he fled the country and became the first Iranian to form a Persian dance company outside Iran. He settled in Los Angeles, formed a dance studio and made the world's first Persian dance-instruction videos in Farsi. These videos are awesomely fun, even for an English speaker. The music is bitchin, the steps are easy to follow and Khordadian is eminently watchable.