Dancing: Two worlds

I learned to dance as a teenager in Bogota from neighbors at home and friends in clubs.

I see in dancing a language to connect with others. This connection doesn’t have to be (and typically isn’t) romantic. Rather, it’s about experiencing songs together, with humor, playfully exploring our different idiosyncrasies sharing the joy of music. I remember fondly how much fun I had singing, at the top of my lungs and acting out the lyrics, Pedro Navaja or Juanito Alimaña or Decisiones with my friend Juan Pablo. We weren’t strictly dancing, but it’s all the same.

I dance because I enjoy music. Listening to songs I like, whatever the genre, makes me want to dance. Dancing helps me experience emotions expressed by music. I listen to salsa outside of the dance floor as much as to any other genres.

I don’t need much to achieve all my goals for dancing. A few dance moves more than suffice. Being able to execute them well, with different partners, and to improvise, to feel the music intensely, matters much more to me.

However, salsa in Zürich is very different. Imagine going to an eighties-rock party to find out that everybody has been taking classes where dance is dissected into a series of explicit figures, each with named variations. These two activities share the same label, “dancing”, but they are actually very different.

I understand how learning these dance moves, nailing complex figures, can bring a genuine feeling of accomplishment. It is certainly far from trivial. But I don’t personally find it very appealing. I’ve taken one or two classes, mostly out of curiosity, which confirmed what I expected: I enjoy dancing infinitely more than studying dancing.

I see this other kind of dancing as something closer to learning to play chess. It’s a competition, a progression that starts with learning basic steps and, ideally, takes you to performing impossible figures on a stage. The focus seems to be on expanding the repertoire of studied moves, like learning chess openings, more an intellectual pursuit than an emotional experience. I really enjoy dancing merengue but I’ve heard salsa dancers say that they don’t like merengue at all: it’s just too easy, not enough of a challenge.

As far as I can tell, this type of dancing only has a tenuous connection with the music, not much beyond “stop dancing when the music stops” and “ideally, be on beat”. I asked someone who had been dancing every week for more than a decade which bands or songs they liked. They couldn’t name any! They explained that they only listen to salsa music if they’re dancing. Songs transition from euphoric to melancholic phases and back, but this has no bearing on the energy infused into the dance.

I once danced with a stranger who was completely stiff and kept missing the beat. It felt like dancing with a fridge. I figured I’d just help them find the rhythm and politely wait for the end of the song, but they quickly voiced their own disappointment: I wasn’t leading them into any fancy dance moves they could learn. Turns out we were equally disappointed!

If dancing is a language, the focus of this type of dancing seems to be on learning new syntax rules; actually using this language to express emotions, to connect with the music or others, is much more important to me.

I met a professional modern dancer who explained that they wouldn’t be interested in dancing with me. I wasn’t serious about dancing, they said; rather, I only cared about “social dancing”. This person was serious about dancing and, therefore, had no use for social dancers like me.

I still remember, nearly three decades later, one time I danced with a friend of a friend in Bogota. We didn’t do anything fancy, just a few simple turns, but it was so gentle, so natural, so soft, that I felt like we were gliding above clouds, floating gently.

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