One leg slides to the side.
The ribs all slide to the side too, because they’re team players, but the hips pull back the other way as if to say ‘Please, please let’s sit down or we shall make an exhibition of ourselves.’
The spine tugs the bashful hips just as they decide they will go after all. With too much momentum, they overshoot the leading leg and rebound alarmingly. Stability is only restored if the partnering foot is on the ball.
First step taken, the leading leg tries the slide again, reasoning perhaps that the hips will have overcome their initial qualms. Not so, the second attempt is equally disgraceful. The hips’ contrariness makes an artless slide appear contrived, a bit sneaky, almost a sidle. The leading leg throws up illusory hands and passes the lead to its partner.
The skittish hips however, balk whichever way they’re led and begin to sulk. Since they’ve already made an exhibition of themselves, they have nothing to lose and adopt a cussed attitude. While the feet are kicking ideas around, the hips make a defiant gesture which borders on the vulgar.
The shoulders ride serenely above the shambles. They’re snobs; not for them the good-natured ‘Howdy’ style tilts of a line dance. They amuse themselves on a higher level and enjoy exercising their right to move independently of each other. Amateur psychologists, they’ve diagnosed the hips as suffering from pushmi-pullyu syndrome.
At a stretch, the arms are free spirits; they can do whatever they like and no-one gives a boot.
The head never, NEVER looks down. To do so would implicate it in the body’s impropriety.
Finally, the face maintains a bland and gracious smile, like a lawyer, so as to intimate that its client (the head) is in no way responsible for the transgressions of any other body part.
And that, with sundry embellishments, is how you dance the Bachata.
Latin Steps
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