Salsa: An Antidote for Today's Disembodied Self
By Laureano Ralon Facchina*

Before you head down to the club tonight, I would like you to meditate upon the reasons you enjoy dancing so much. Have you ever wondered why you've been so hooked into Salsa lately? I mean, other than the usual: “it's a healthy way to meet people” or “it's a great way to stay in shape”. If these are the best reasons you can come up with, think again. Besides, let's face it: Salsa dancing is not so much a social as it is a narcissistic activity in the precise sense of the word. Should this sound outrageous, it's probably because nowadays most people take the terms "narcissism", "narcissistic" and "narcissist" as pejoratives, denoting vanity, egotism, or simple selfishness. Historically, mythologically and philosophically, however, the real meaning of the word narcissism has the opposite consequences: it's not about looking good and showing it to the world, nor about being charming and flirtatious out of self-indulgance; on the contrary, according to Wikipedia, narcissism describes the character trait of self love. The word is derived from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus pined away and changed into the flower that bears his name, the narcissus.

My contention is that Salsa – in its very essence – has a strong narcissistic element, even though people claim again and again to have gotten into dance to socialize and meet other people. All this seems rather paradoxical, but there's no inherent contradiction here. Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth and was the first to use the term in reference to psychology. It's all about how you look at it. I believe Salsa isn't so much a narcissistic dance as it is a vehicle to satisfy our narcissistic desires, the very human need to connect with your inner self. Let's not fool ourselves: if Salsa were all about taking care of your partner (like West Coast Swing, for example, whereby in theory the man is supposed to be just the frame, and the woman only the picture), then this dance wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is today. What else would account for such an extraordinary growth in Salsa? If memory serves me correctly, here in Vancouver it wasn't long ago that the Swing scene was much more popular than Salsa; however, over time things seem to have shifted, with Salsa emerging as this powerful force. Why? Is it just because Salsa is easier as some claim? Let's not be simplistic! Easy, after all, is an empty word. If anything, salsa is an accessible dance: because it's easy to get started, it's easy to connect to your inner-self. Logically, this is not the same as saying that Salsa is easy absolutely.

Connecting with your inner self is essential nowadays. Why “nowadays”? Because we live in a highly technological society where interpersonal exchange and unmediated communication are a dying breed. Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan once predicted that the technological advances of our post-industrial society would lead the seemingly utopian global village to a spiritual crisis. Basically, McLuhan believed in the transformative powers of media: just as a metaphor transforms and transmits experiences by expressing one idea in terms of another, for McLuhan, so did the media. In times when we're so hooked onto the Internet, cellphones and the like, McLuhan would say that we are being transported angelically, without bodies, to distant locations. Your self inhabits a physical body, but your perception and awareness of world events are hightened by the new media of communication. The end result is what he called “the descarnate being”. McLuhan announced that this fundamental contradiction (an embodied self with hightened perception and sensibilities) would be painful for human beings – unless, of course, one can counter-balance the effects with narcissistic activities that allow for a celebration of the embodied self.

In today's technological world, dancing in general and Salsa in particular are part of a rare breed of unmediated, interpersonal communication. Such activities provide an anti-environment – an antidote – to the highly mediated, technologized environments we live in (think about your everyday activities: from the moment we wake up with the aid of an alarm clock, through to our use of coffee machines, photocopiers, telephones, television, and the Internet.) Slowly but surely, we have abdicated our right to be with ourselves, within ourselves, and in the company of ourselves. Now, in saying this I'm not advocating forms of extreme narcissism. In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism is recognized as a severe personality dysfunction or personality disorder, most characteristically Narcissistic Personality Disorder, also referred to as NPD. In Salsa I have seen my fair share of obsessed individuals who are self-consumed by their own image, and I'm by no means trying to make a case for such individuals. If you ask me, I believe the statement “to love other people you must first love yourself” to be false. In fact, I am of the opinion that the opposite holds true: “to love yourself, you must first love the other person.” Interpersonal communication and face to face interaction concerns the other person – both in a partner dance such as Salsa and in everyday life –, but at the same time, one mustn't forget that tensions are not to be reduced, but managed. So, as you head down to your favourite club for some Salsa action tonight, remember to keep it balanced: Salsa is in its very nature a narcissistic activity; it is all about loving yourself and being in the company of yourself – a self which you project onto your partner, your partner internalizes, and reflects back to you. Loving yourself and loving other people is the same thing. Bon appetite!