You Can Dance: Just Dance ABBA edition 70s Party

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
Ooo.. see that girl, watch that scene, diggin’ the Dancing Queen

Mental note for next time: it’s really, really hard to coordinate groups of people for playtime close to the holidays.

Because of my fervent, ongoing love affair of the Just Dance games for the Wii, I was invited to try out the new ABBA You Can Dance edition. AND, I got some fundage for throwing a mad 70s disco party.

Sadly, I found that my bright orange flowered polyester jumpsuit had been donated to Goodwill during one of my more disciplined clutter-busting sessions (I probably let myself think I’d never find another reason to wear it; I should have known better). But another look through my closet yielded some wide leg trouser jeans, my Doc Marten platform heels, and a long, close-fitting striped shirt. (All of the best clothes of the 70s are totally in fashion again.) I’d never worn these things together and I looked about 10 miles tall. Which means I’ll be wearing them together ALL THE TIME now.

The Clever Girls sent us an awesome disco ball to add to our collection. I mean, for proper mood lighting and ambiance.

Maverick and I conducted the bestest grocery store shopping trip ever, loading up on all kinds of hippie breads and tons of cheese for fondue. And cheese spreads and hummus for sides, YUM.

My SIL donated some homemade beer bread to the cause, made with Guinness. I’m not a Guinness beer fan for drinking, but it makes for some tasty bread.

Please to be disregarding how dirty our Crock Pot is. It’s not actually from the 70s, although the caked on grime might make it appear that way. We use it a LOT, for fondue and otherwise (although Jeff has fondue pretty much down to a science at this point).

Cherry Garcia and Half-Baked Ben & Jerry’s fro-yo for dessert? Totally appropriate, right?

I picked up some Tab, discovering when I got home that it’s sweetened with stuff that causes cancer in lab rats. Also, it’s yucky. Luckily we had Pepsi Throwback already in house— I’m not sure that it throws back to the 70s, necessarily, but Jeff and I were the only people present that actually experienced the 70s so no one was the wiser.

So, then we had to work off the 80 million calories we had just consumed (dipping broccoli in the cheese does not make the meal healthy, no matter how much you want it to). Time to disco.

I had hoped that some new dance moves had been added to make this game more challenging, and I wasn’t disappointed in that regard; it’s much like the Michael Jackson Experience in that the new moves were distinctly tailored to the game. Some of the partnered dances had pretty complex moves, to be honest. This is a harder game than the traditional Just Dance editions, so be forewarned.

But my favorite aspect of the Just Dance games is that we typically work up a SWEAT while laughing our butts off, dramatically peeling off layers and chugging water, and I really didn’t get that from this edition. The new moves seem more centered on the arm movements and the whole-body moves just weren’t as easy or instinctive (so we tended to halfass them).

It’s still fun— especially if you theme the evening like we did, we really thought we were funny— but probably better for older teens and young adults. Or maybe incorporate some 70s cocktails into an all-adults party :). That always livens things up.

ABBA You Can Dance is available at Amazon, of course. And anywhere else they sell Wii games.

Are you a Just Dance fan? What’s your favorite song to dance to?

Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.