Personal background, as it pertains to this study, and methodology:
I (on right in above still photo retrieved from intake video) began salsa dancing in 1999 at lessons held early in the night at the local Latin club in my hometown in Connecticut. I was already a trained musician, at the time in between colleges for an undergraduate degree in performance/education. I had never formally danced, and knew very little about Latin music at the time. I quickly picked up the basics at the lessons in the club. Looking for a greater challenge, my partner and I took formal lessons from the teacher, Eddie Perez (no relation to El Gran Combo), in his kitchen in Stamford, Connecticut for almost a year. We graduated to lessons with Eddie’s friend Alex Matthieu, this time taking lessons in his living room; Alex refused payment beyond a bottle of port. Alex took occasional lessons with Frankie Martinez, or stole moves by watching other dancers at socials, would come back to Connecticut and perfect a move by practicing it on me. He then taught the moves to my partner. Since our lessons quickly diffused into a social event (the port may have had something to do with this), it became apparent that the place where I would learn the most on a long-term basis was the social dance floor. For the first five or six years that I danced salsa, I danced nearly three or four nights a week at Latin nights in bars or clubs, or to live bands, in Connecticut and New York. I taught basic social Latin dance through the Adult Continuing Education Program in my community and helped my first teacher whenever he needed a hand with his classes. I would dance on 1; I would dance on 2; I would even, and quite often, dance on 3. When I moved to Boston in 2005 for my masters degree, I took a year off from dancing to settle into a new program, but began to find the hotspots and understand the different social dynamics of Boston. On 2 was barely registering up there at the time; now it is oddly pandemic. When I moved to New York City for my Ph. D. in 2009, I fell back into the world of on 2 and its insular character, although I searched out Colombian and Cuban dance communities as well. Salsa classica/dura kept pulling me back, despite my love/hate relationship with the culture of on 2.
When I began fieldwork for this dissertation in 2014, I had already mapped out the questions and concerns that I would likely include in my project, although there were many more issues I wish that I could have spent time discussing with my participants. The tone of my interviews was one of a fellow dancer—inquisitive, knowledgeable, and understanding. I admit to learning more about the interview process with each interview I conducted; each participant, as one may expect, required a different approach, but I shared something in common with all of the participants—I love the dance and I love the music, passionately. I have danced with horrible dancers and I have danced with amazing dancers. It is this very dichotomy that pulled me to this research. There is magic hidden inside the perfect moment of a perfect dance and I wanted to know why it was easier to get closer to this magic with some people and to some music, and more difficult with other people and to other music. I pushed my dancing friends to answer challenging questions more than I pushed participants that I didn’t know very well. If I sensed that participants were comfortable and interested in the project, I spent more time with the interview than I would with participants who answered my questions succinctly. Some participants wanted to delve further into difficult topics, such as the ineffable somethings that often arise when speaking about how music moves one’s self. I am grateful for the time and energy that these participants gave to me, as well as that of the participants who kept me to my word of a three-hour interview. I gained valuable experience from both.
I have prepared for this research with nineteen years of practical salsa dancing experience in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts; just under a year-and-a half of formal salsa training; and seizing every opportunity I have had while traveling to feed my obsession of studying social dance in Los Angeles, Curacao, Mexico City, New Orleans, and Munich, among other places. I have learned a great deal on the social dance floor and from occasional, though insightful, lessons in Boston and New York City. I have no prior training in dance. My interest in salsa, however, has moved me to explore other forms of dance such as Kathak (just under two years with Rachna Ramya Agrawal), bellydance (various teachers, three years), samba (very informally with friends), swing (six months with Paolo Lanna), tango (a few lessons and milongas in New York City), Afro-Cuban orisha dancing (one year with Richard Gonzalez and La Mora), and Dunham Technique (about a year with Joan Peters). My academic training (and practice therein) has given me the space and means of articulation by which, as well as frameworks upon which, I can build a study such as this. My teachers and experiences, in my time as a dancer, musician, and academic, have inspired me to pursue projects that connect the two, sometimes disparate, worlds of musicians and dancers.
Methodology
This study addresses the musicality of dancers through analysis carried out in collaboration with twenty-five New York City-area social dancers of varied skill levels. The dancers’ age range was twenty-seven to seventy-nine years old with a median age of forty-five. Five participants were also trained musicians, either practicing or no longer practicing, with some participants more formally trained than others. Ten participants were professional dancers from a variety of genres: ballet/modern, jazz/tap, mambo/salsa, ballroom/dancesport, Polynesian, Hip Hop, and African. The remaining ten participants received no formal training in either music or dance.
Fifteen of the participants were male and ten were female. Classifications in racial differences proved difficult in the study since many of the participants did not self identity. Some identified as “white” and/or “Jewish,” some as “Puerto Rican,” some as “Black.” Many self identified as a complex combination that culminated in “American.” There were no simple comments about race throughout the interviews and I will refer to participants accordingly throughout the study, indicating self-identification if applicable to the analyses.
Most of my participants aligned with heteronormative gender constructions (men most often chose women to dance with, and vice versa), although some of the male leaders have led male followers and some of the female followers have been led by female leaders. Throughout the work of this dissertation, I adhere to heteronormative gender terminology (leaders are referred to as “he” and “him,” and followers are referred to as “she” and “her”), although on the dance floor there is some degree of variety (McMains 2015). At socials held in dance studios, male followers or female leaders may ask dance partners to dance with them (the degree of informality of these spaces is safer and less judgmental than a nightclub); this practice is less common at night clubs (unless within a group of people who know each other), although in these settings it is common to see women dancing together, often in groups. Despite a broadened definition of gender roles on the dance floor, especially in the last decade, I have witnessed dances between two women at socials or nightclubs interrupted by men on more than one occasion.
Six of the followers who I formally interviewed could follow whichever style of salsa they were led, depending on the clarity of the lead. The remaining four followers would follow what their partners led them on, but preferred dancing on 2. I had seen most of these followers led by dancers whose counts and styles varied, thus I was able to confirm the participants’ answers to my interview questions. Eight of the leaders who I formally interviewed told me that they only danced on 2, although from watching these participants dance, I have to note some personal variation in their claims to staying on this particular count when we spoke about it during the interview. Three leaders I interviewed dance primarily on 1, but are somewhat familiar with on 2 styles, if only conceptually. One leader informed me that he could dance on any count but preferred dancing on 2, while three others told me that they didn’t mind dancing on whichever count their partner preferred. I could not verify all of these participants’ claims, but I believed their word when they told me that they liked to have a good time when they were out social dancing since I had been out social dancing with them. Albeit obvious, it is difficult to have a good time social dancing a partner style of dance without pleasing your partner.
My work with all participants consisted of two parts. I initially recorded the participant at a social dance with at least three different partners to at least three different songs. If the participant was male, I danced with him for one song. Female participants picked out their own partners, some of whom I had already interviewed for the project. If I had not already interviewed their partners, I made attempts to do so. The events included dance studio socials (events held in dance studios regularly rented out by dance teachers or event organizers), clubs, and venues such as community centers. At the socials, prerecorded music was the norm. Clubs and community centers usually featured live music with prerecorded music selected by a DJ before, between, and after the live music sets.
After the initial recordings, I analyzed the footage and prepared an in-depth feedback interview that took an average of three hours. I met with participants in their, or my, home, with few exceptions. The interview consisted of three sections:
1) Background and general questions: I asked participants to tell me a bit about themselves and their background, such as their age, where they grew up, language(s) they speak, occupation(s), and educational background. I asked participants about their experiences with music, either formal or informal. Dance backgrounds yielded captivating stories of participants’ personal lives, mirroring the power that dance has had in shaping my own life. I asked both general and specific questions about dancing with partners in salsa, such as if there were partners with whom they especially enjoyed dancing and what this person did that made them an enjoyable partner. Many participants offered comparative examples of dancers with whom they did not enjoy dancing. At this point in the interview, we discussed characteristic features of particular dancers, both hypothetical and actual. We spoke of musicality on the terms presented by the participants and of the connections between dancer(s) and music. Lastly, I asked each participant about clave. What is it for them? Where, how, and from whom did they hear about it? What did it mean to them and their dancing?
2) In this section of the interview, the participant and I watched the videos of him or her social dancing. I began by letting the participant watch the first video in its entirety while I listened and watched for reactions. We then went through the video again, pulling out particular moments that stood out to each of us. Although some participants initially seemed daunted by the prospect of analyzing something they do “without thinking about it,” most quickly became active in the analytical process after they saw a few of the details that I was bringing to their attention. Participants commented upon subsequent videos with increasing attention to detail and insightful comparisons. We spent approximately ten to twenty minutes on each (upon average) five-minute recording.
3) Lastly, we briefly watched two control videos—videos that every participant in the project viewed. Both videos were downloaded from YouTube with the intention of providing a basis for conversations about aesthetics, choreography, “street” dancing, and divergence of substyles within the larger framework of salsa. The first video consisted of a two-and-a-half minute choreographed routine of New York style dancing by a young pair of professional salsa dancers. The second video showed another young couple improvising in various styles at a street festival; most participants watched about three minutes of this five-minute excerpt. I did not provide background about either video until after significant discussion had occurred. I did ask that participants give me their overall impression and tell me things that they liked or did not like about the videos. Most participants had strong opinions about the videos and I altered my line of questioning depending on their comments.
The in-depth feedback interviews provided insight into the foundations of improvising and aesthetics within the conventions of this dance/music. Participants indicated the importance of how movement expresses musicality and how attention to the multisensorial realm of dance provides them with a rewarding and deep experience. Our work has enabled me to begin creating an analytical basis for understanding dancers’ claims of “dancing in the music, as opposed to with the music” and “getting into the zone” or “the flow”—i.e., how dancers engage their corporeal knowledge of music.
For the past eight years, “musicality” has begun to be taught as a separate workshop in several on 2 studios in New York City, as well as through online tutorials and workshops at congresses. “Musicality” is also included in class descriptions as being an integral part of pedagogy. This formalization has arisen alongside the phenomenon of internet discussions, blogs, as well as becoming an articulated aspect of dancers’ evaluations of themselves and other dancers. I have included information gathered from these online blogs, tutorials, and teachers who teach courses advertised as “musicality” courses in this work. It is difficult for me to parse much of this information out, as it seems to create a feedback loop out of itself. For example, a few days after I had interviewed one participant (who was intrigued by my research), posted an “advertisement” on his Facebook page offering dance lessons that focused on musicality.
