“We Don’t Dance Like This:” Embodied Knowledge and Sensory Disorientation in a Bachata Social Dance
Holly Tumblin
University of Florida
As I walk through the hotel corridor, I briefly glance in the hanging wall mirror to confirm that my dark maroon lipstick is still only on my lips and is not, instead, on my teeth. This is the first night of social dancing at the bachata congress, and I do not want to begin the weekend with a rogue speck of color. Once I confirm that my teeth are stain-free, I enter the dark hotel ballroom and feel a wave of heat hit my face from the overflow of moving bodies. This heat directly contrasts from the blasting air conditioning in the hallway that tries to provide a space for dancers to cool down when they step outside of the social dance room. I look around me and see couples moving close together, hand in hand, body to body. I hear the slow, digitally mediated sounds of a sensual bachata song booming from the sound system – it is so loud that the pounding vibrations of the bass rhythm reverberate through my chest. As I maneuver myself around the people standing on the side of the dance floor, I smell waves of cologne and perfume, and I cannot help but smile to myself. We dancers try to start the night off by smelling good, but we all accept that by hour three of dancing in the close proximity of other people, we will succumb to the intermixing smell of sweat and feeling of a wet shirt when we touch our dance partner’s back.
Once I get closer to the dance floor, I sense the gentle pressure of another person’s hand on my forearm as a man gets my attention to ask me to dance. I nod a “Yes,” and we step onto the fake red-brown wooden floor. The pressure of my foot sinks a bit into the plastic tile that was rented for the event to cover the carpet in the ballroom and make it easier for dancers to move in their suede-bottomed shoes.
As we step onto the floor, the sounds of the current bachata song begin to fade away and an 8-count bongo beat vamp plays to provide time for the dancers to switch partners before the new song starts. I notice that as the introductory bongo roll of the next bachata song begins, my partner seems a bit uncomfortable. He pulls me towards his body so that my left arm can rest on top of his right as he places his hand on my left shoulder blade. While he enacts this standard, closed-position motion, he barely looks at me, staring instead around the dance floor in a nervous manner. I can feel his body tense, and his initial light-hearted demeanor shifts from confident to unsure. I do not immediately know what is making him uncomfortable, but then he mutters, “Where I’m from, we don’t dance like this.”
When we take our first couple of steps together, I can tell that he is likely used to the quick, footwork-focused movements of Dominican bachata and he seems uncomfortable with the pressure to move in the slow, full-corporeal movements of sensual bachata that he sees unfolding around us. We hear vast, electronic tones that provide an open aural space for exaggerated bodily responses. My partner and I sway back and forth with movements that feel like reactions to the sounds rather than pre-planned corporeal decisions. While this unfolds, I try to put him at ease by letting him know that sensual bachata is just a different kind of style, it does not mean that he does not know how to dance bachata. I suggest that we can just do the “1, 2, 3, tap” of the bachata basic step and still have an enjoyable dance. Regardless of my words, the disorientation that he experiences from hearing a sensual bachata song and seeing people move with body rolls and body dips keeps him from being able to connect with his partner – me.
These few moments of exchange strike me because my partner obviously carries an important embodied knowledge of bachata, but when his sensory experience misaligns with his embodied knowing, it impacts our experience together.