Travelogues

Chaos Of Movement On The Dancefloor - Salsa In Casa De La Musica, Havana, Cuba

This Article Is Track 05 Of Travel Soundtrack

A man, a woman and music. A simple compound that, like gunpowder, has an explosive power for creativity and catastrophe alike.

A personal goal on arriving in Latin America was to progress beyond the inexpert fumblings in Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and Cha Cha Cha that I had previously managed in Dublin and Melbourne. I nursed an optimistic belief in the improbable theory of mojo osmosis. Living on this continent would surely imbue me with more body rhythm than is natural for a pure-bred Celt to possess....

While still in Ireland, I had developed a number of ready-made excuses as to why, despite two years of dance lessons, my dance-floor performances still oscillated between the ponderously robotic and wildly epileptic with no suave middle-ground. The real reasons for my inability to look smooth and to keep time were a lack of both confidence and real world practice outside of the security of a dance class. Yet, on arriving in Latin America, I also began to suspect another subtler reason for my lack of success - I had lost any sense of real connection or understanding of my own body. Career energy had been supplied by intellectual rather than physical reserves and I had largely forgotten myself as a biological being. It was high time to re-learn that a body is more than a vehicle for transporting one's brain.

On my fifth week in Guatemala, I began lessons in Salsa. Despite the fact that none of Salsa's numerous styles and influences - amongst them, Columbian, Cuban, Puerto-Rican, New Yorican and Los Angelina - owe any real debt to Guatemala, there is a large choice of Salsa schools in Antigua. Accepting the recommendation of a number of friends I began lessons with Gloria.

Gloria is a wonderful and striking presence both on and off the dancefloor. In a country of relatively short people, Gloria's tall and elegant frame is easy to spot, even from a distance. A personality that combines strength, fun and intelligence, Gloria is an excellent teacher. And when she dances, she is visual poetry embodied.

Despite her talent as a teacher, Gloria had her work cut out with me. Her advice that I needed to "feel it" with my body was alien to my tendency to "process it" with my mind. It took a number of weeks of daily one on one lessons with Gloria before my body felt liberated enough to find its own rhythm, without first asking permission from my frontal lobe.

Gloria's greatest gift to me during the 20 or more lessons we had together was to bitch-slap me into acting like a man - "con decision". Dancing with such a talented partner can give one a totally deluded sense of one's own level of skill. To bring me back to earth, Gloria would occasionally switch mode to the wayward and physically inept - invoking memories of many of my dance partners in Dublin - to test my ability to give a firm, clear and accurate lead.

Mid-way through my lessons with Gloria, I test-drove my new moves with Helene, a French journalist with an Irish accent who I had met at my Spanish school. We went to salsa night in Sin Ventura, near Antigua's Parque Central. Though charming company, Helene made a poor job at concealing her gleeful mirth at the rictus of panic and concentration she read on my face as my lips jabbered the mantra "quick, quick, slow, quick, quick, slow." Evidently, not the cool, calm and collected vibe I was going for - I still had plenty of work to do.

However, over the next few weeks, I absorbed Gloria's instruction and my movements became stronger, more confident and expressive. This was more than just a lot of fun. I felt I was beginning to articulate something important, that my body had previously lacked the vocabulary for. Dancing is a particularly profound form of communication between a man and a woman - enabling one to discover a mutual resonance that makes words superfluous.

Despite its evident sensuality, latin dancing can in some ways be a sex-free zone. "If he's doing it right the guy doesn't have time to think about sex" as Gloria informed me. Of course, that is not to say dance is without sexual politics. When still in Ireland, I noted that Irish women had real difficulty accepting a lead from a man. Perhaps that was just because Irish woman were as genetically unsuited to latin dancing as their male compatriots like me. But I also suspected it sprung from a deep philosophical objection to yielding dominance to any man who lacks the expertise to earn the privilege. Almost to confirm this thesis, Gloria noted that the western women she teaches appear much more free when dancing with a Lain male (who probably knows what he is doing) than with their gringo male counterparts.

Something else Gloria taught me was that the politics of latin dancing are more subtle than most give credit for. "To do it well, it is really 50/50 leading. The more the woman knows, the more comfortable the guy will be. The woman will be able to improvise and to cover up the guy's mistakes." In other words, women allow men the illusion that they are making the decisions. True on and off the dance-floor.

Play Music:
Hips Don`t Lie (Shakira feat. Wycleaf Jean)

This Weeks Places:
Antigua
Guatemala

This Weeks Sleeps:
Renting A Home

This Weeks Doings:
Coffee Farms
Dance
Learning Spanish