This weekend I will be going dancing. I am throwing a party to celebrate Bar-ack Obama's election, and there will be a DJ and that gives me an excuse to dance.

But if it were not for the party, I would not be dancing. Indeed, I can count the number of times I have gone out dancing this year. It is zero. And that is truly scary.

It was not always this way. When I was 11, I discovered discos. By the time I was a teenager, the unbelievable thrill of the make-up and the sequinned boob tube, and the possibility of getting off with boys meant that going dancing was the ultimate reason for being alive -- everything else was geared towards it. My sister and I hitch-hiked for miles in our stilettos in the freezing cold to get to discos and were disappointed by the boys, but never by the dancing.

Once I was old enough, I would travel alone on the Slattery's bus to London, so that I could go to Gossips in Dean Street, just because I loved to dance there, such was the intensity of my passion. When I met Shane, my partner, our first date took us to the 100 Club on Oxford Street, where they had a Northern Soul all-nighter. Shane had come from a family where dancing was as normal as watching telly is now, and he was as enthusiastic about it as I was. Early on in our relationship, he was hit by a taxi, and broke his leg. I visited him in the hospital and as I was leaving, I told him I was going dancing to Gaz's Rocking Blues, our favourite club. "I'll join you there," he promised me and sure enough, he turned up on crutches and danced all night as usual.

All through my 20s and well into my 30s dancing was our main form of exercise and entertainment as well as the way we got together with our friends, because we went dancing in a big gang, which was part of the fun. I have never been so fit, but it was never any kind of effort to do it; it was pure pleasure.

And then, one day I woke up and noticed that the dancing had stopped. I don't know how or why it happened, it just did. We didn't go dancing and neither did our friends. We went to movies, and to pubs and to dinner in each other's houses, or we watched telly. If we danced, it was once or twice a year, at somebody's party.

Around the same time that the dancing stopped, I began to feel middle-aged for the first time. And frumpy. And unfashionable. And if I ever did venture into a club, I felt intimidated by all the young, fit people, showing off their flesh while I was trying to hide the bulges. And so I vowed to retire from dancing, so that I wouldn't look stupid.

A few people came along and almost got me back on the dance floor. Sir Jack Leslie was one of them. For his 85th birthday he went to Ibiza and did the rounds of the clubs and I went with him. And because he was 50 years older than me, I had no excuse -- I simply had to join in with the all-night raving. And it was transcendentally blissful, just as it always had been. But when we got back to Ireland, I went clubbing with him in Monaghan and again felt old and intimidated, surrounded by teenagers.

The other person who occasionally gets me moving is Kate Moss, who would never in a million years spend an evening in front of the telly, and so, every time I go to her house, I find myself dancing, just because that's what she does. But left to my own devices, I am more often than not slumped on the sofa, glued to the box.

Things were set to continue that way, until this weekend. Anne Harris asked me if I would like to write about dance, as a cheap way of getting through the recession. And I began to think about dance and to ask people about it. I spoke to Shane about it. He said he was depressed by the fact that people don't dance as much as they used to.

"When I was a kid, there was a non-stop dance in our kitchen," he said. "People came from miles around, and they sang and played and danced all night and the telly was hardly ever turned on."

"Why do you think people should dance?" I asked him.

"Think of it as if we are all lights on a Christmas tree," he said. "When you are dancing, you aren't worrying about the future, you are in the moment. You are fully alive, connected to the universe. And you burn brightly, you light up. And the world becomes a brighter place to be, when everyone lights up."

I almost cried when Shane said that. Because, even though I do all kinds of exercise, none of it is as much fun as dancing was. And if you spend a few hours in the gym, you know you are in pain the whole time you are there, but, from what I remember, I danced all night long in high- heeled shoes and never felt a thing.

I set out on a mission to find dancers who might inspire me to get back on the floor.

Anne Farrell is a huge fan of dance, in particular the tango, but also salsa. "I would describe dance as my Prozac!" she says. "I did Irish dancing as a kid, which I hated, but then I started disco dancing, and loved it. In Miami, while I was travelling, I discovered Cubans and Puerto Ricans dancing salsa and I just said, "Oh My God!" And now I do tango. I always say to people that I am going to dance into my coffin!"

Anne says that before she discovered dance, she used to go out drinking of an evening, as many Irish people do.

"But with dance, you don't need alcohol. There is a natural endorphin high from it. And it's great to go out for a night and feel good the next day!"

She goes dancing three nights a week, and she says that, not only is it great physically and mentally, it has given her an exciting social life too, with friends from far flung places such as Guatemala and Brazil, people she would not have met otherwise. And it doesn't cost a lot, unlike drinking or dining out. She also met her ex-partner through dancing.

"We had great fun and entered dance competitions and even went to Mexico representing Ireland!"

Anne works as a health promotion officer for CIE, and she was looking for a way to share her passion for dance while also inspiring people who were sedentary to take exercise in a way that was enjoyable.

"So I designed a dance initiative for bus drivers called 'Gut busters'. Some of them lost three stone in the three-month period that we ran it. It was very successful. A lot of them are still dancing.'

Danielle Vierling is a Californian dance teacher who moved to Ireland in 1997. She teaches a holistic, free-form style called Synergy Dance. And she swears by it. Indeed, I have been to her classes, and they are extremely uplifting and don't require you to learn any steps, or wear any special clothes. And Danielle is the same age as me, but outrageously young-looking and very hot. But as Danielle points out, Synergy caters to all body types and all ages.

"You don't have to be slim and trim in a leotard!" she says.

Danielle took a vow earlier in her life that she would always keep dance in her life. "Always. I started with ballet when I was five and then went on to modern jazz, dabbled in this and that. And there was a period when I stopped dancing, because I was too busy and I just felt so much more stiff and stressed. When you are dancing you feel energised, full of life and happier, but you take it for granted. When you stop you realise something is missing. And so I became a teacher, because that means I have to do it!"

David Mooney is a young psychotherapist from Dublin who also facilitates a weekly dance class called 'Embodiment' which takes a holistic approach to dancing.

"Is dance a spiritual activity as well as a physical one?'"I asked him.

"Yes, there is definitely a spiritual aspect to dance," he says. "In that you are meeting the Self in movement, coming into the present moment. But not like a religion! Its just a way of coming back into the body and learning from the wisdom of the body."

When he was 24, David lived in France and got used to a social life that didn't revolve around drinking. When he came home, he wanted to carry on like that, but felt isolated and didn't know what to do.

"The idea was seeded to form an alternative to the drinking scene -- a good night out. And so I run a thing called the Funky Seomra once a month, which is basically a club with no alcohol. And it's working really well.

"I came to dance through counselling and psychotherapy, as a way of expressing myself. It was a therapeutic journey, but it has developed. There is a sense of community around the dance classes, so it's a way of meeting other people and having fun, without having to go drinking."

Eorna Walton is an artist who plays tennis and hill-walks but says her forays into dancing took her into totally new dimensions."I don't drink. So I wouldn't have had a niche at night time, really, so I started to dance and I loved it. It's not that the people in the tango scene don't drink, but it requires so much concentration that there wouldn't be so much taken."

She has been tangoing now for five years, and even spent a month in Buenos Aires dancing.

"What are the benefits?" I asked her.

"Oh, it's just so good for you! And it's so romantic and so beautiful and intense. And it's sensual. It's totally brought out another side of me. It's a wonderful way to express yourself. I never expected to find something at this stage in my life that I would get such a kick out of, such a thrill!"

She won't say how old she is, but will say that she isn't in her 30s. "I am an adult! But the age group in tango is from 20s up to 80s. So it isn't ageist. And it's very sociable. It's a great way for men and women to interact. It's divine. It's a minor divinity. Oh My God! And I do it!"

All these enthusiastic people really made me think. The people who are into dancing are almost addicted to it. I cast my mind back to when I was addicted to it. It was effortless and fabulous.

Sir Jack Leslie. I wondered if he is still dancing. According to his niece, Sammy he still goes to the disco twice a week. When I met him, I made a vow that I would be doing that when I was his age. I had better get a move on.

Jane Shortall is a human fire-cracker. A petite, pretty, Kylie-type creature, she doesn't merely radiate positive vibes, she machine-guns them. And she teaches dance. If anyone can inspire me, she can.

"The problem a lot of people have is that the teachers make them feel like plonkers, just because they don't immediately get the steps," she tells me. "And maybe they aren't skinny and the teacher is, so they don't feel successful, they don't feel sexy, and they don't keep going to the classes."

She tells me that what I need is Sheryl Murakami, a former ballet dancer turned high-energy funky choreographer from New York. Sheryl has developed a class that involves wearing high heels and strutting across the floor, wiggling your ass. It is designed to bring out sexual confidence, whatever size you are, and whether you are a great dancer or not. It basically gets you your mojo back. Eureka! That's the answer! I lost my mojo. I used to feel like Beyonce on the dance floor and now I feel like Judy Finnegan. But, lucky for me, Sheryl is making a trip to Ireland, to teach for a week. And so I am enrolled. But in the meantime, just to get me in the mood, I dress up in a red flamenco skirt and a black tail-coat and pearls and pose on the beach with Shane, pretending to do the tango. We are not that great at tangoing but that's not the point. The point is it is fun trying. And now that I have tried, I don't want to stop. To hell with watching telly. I can feel a new addiction coming on, and it's going to be a good one.

For details, contact Synergy Dance (085) 703-4984, Embodiment www.dublin.ie/websites/movement, Jane Shortall www.janeshortall.com/ classes, salsa www.danzon.ie and tango, www.dats.ie

- Victoria Mary Clarke