Looks, Moves and Connection: Part II
By Laureano Ralon Facchina*

Most people would agree by now that social dancing is about interpreting the music and attending to your partner, whether as leader or follower. Let us call these basic prerequisites the “content” or “essence”of a partner dance; they belong to the normative realm of the ideal, the desired. In reality, however, things get a little more complicated and messy, as all content must be framed by some type form or structure and total freedom is not always a possibility. There can be no creativity without rules.

As with language, it is through various structural forms that the essence of a dance can be revealed and messages between two dancers can be exchanged. In a partner dance such as Salsa, these forms are the moves we perform; they provide the basic structure of our dance, along with our footwork. Now, how well we perform our moves has a lot to do with how well connected we are with our partner. I heard Graeme Oxendale once say that “good connection is invisible whereas bad connection is very visible.” The comment makes a lot of sense to me: poor connection usually results in poorly executed moves and physical – as well as mental – “distancing” from our partner (“I'm dancing with you but I'm really elsewhere, thinking about my moves and what I'll do next to keep you entertained”). So, connection is indeed the basic foundation upon which our formal structures – the moves, the steps – are to be erected and by which the content or essence of the dance can be articulated.

In philosophy, we say that when a new instrument or technology (a means to an end) is introduced in a given environment, there's a moment of ambiguity, hesitation, and doubt, whereby the instrument can simultaneous be read (as object) and read through (as extended sense). On the one hand, the instrument as object is other than me and that to which I must relate; on the other, it extends or amplifies my capacities such that it is partially 'embodied'. First or early uses of instruments must be learned. Before being embodied or apprehended – that is, before they become “second nature” – they must be mastered and often that task is difficult. Now, in salsa, the moves and steps we make are the instruments or building blocks that define the dance by articulating its content and revealing its essence in all its possibilities; they are not the content or essence of the dance. Thus, part of the problem with the habit of learning new moves on a constant basis is that we get too hung up on them and, as a result, fail to see 'through' them. Much like good connection, moves should be invisible, they should be a means to an end.

But in reality moves can be addictive. A lot of us get too hung up on moves and even to the point of thinking of them as a substitute for everything else. I myself am guilty of this: I know so many moves now that my dance has become promiscuous. Style is about consistency and homogeneity. But my moves are so prominent that I have come to mistake them with the dance itself. Sometimes, I'm so hung up on my moves that it's almost as though my partner ceased to be the center of attention (part of the essence of the dance) and to become instead the instrument of my dance – the vehicle through which my moves can actualize. This should come as no surprise in an age where the emphasis seems to be on processes and where everything seems to be mediated and framed via technology and instrumentation. But even though technology and instrumentation – i.e., our moves, our steps – incline and suggest certain habits and orientations, they do not totally determine. I believe we can correct these bad habits if we understand what social dancing is really all about – and that takes time and maturity. Advanced dancers can grasp the essence of a dance precisely because they can see through their moves.