CANDADO
'Dos!' Glenda calls out, above the timbales.
Jimmy pulls me in front of him, then behind, and I take his other hand.
'One, two, three... five, six, seven.' I count the beats under my breath, to ground myself while my feet take steps and taps too fast for thought.
We spin a sombrero. The speed is dizzying and our arms seem impossibly entwined, but I end up standing next to him, our arms linked over our shoulders.
I have to put a little skip in my dile que no so that we're back to guapea on the right count. We both laugh. It's a mixture of triumph and surprise.
'That was pretty good.'
'I remember seeing them do this turn,' Jimmy says, referring to a married couple that has been taking the class as long as I have. 'It looks so delicate—more than it feels!'
Dance is strength, disguised as delicacy.
Last week I finished a year of salsa classes with our lovely teacher Glenda {and a succession of friendly dance partners}. I plan to take a break from salsa for the summer.
I say 'plan.' I wasn't going to take this last class either, but driving home from work one evening and hearing Gente de Zona on the radio overwhelmed my resolve, such as it was.
With an end coming also to the dance classes I've been teaching, you can be forgiven thinking the dance floor will be quiet these next months. But there's a salsa dance party after the fashion show this weekend. And I'm ready to sign up for belly dance classes. {Yes.} And I'll be learning new folk dances to teach in the fall.
There will never be a lack of opportunities to cut up the dance floor and laugh.
✦ ✦ ✦
'Candado is the name,' Glenda tells us, after guiding us through a new turn. 'It means lock [padlock]. You hold on to your partner and you turn, like a lock for a gate. And now we practice!—again and again.'
I spin in and out of my partner's arms, we count beats aloud in concentration, we laugh when it turns out badly, and we laugh when it turns out well.
I think about my own dance students. ‘What is the job of a dancer?’ I ask them each week.
Francisco always raises his hand first. ‘To make sure your partner is having a good time!’
And ‘Help us love each one whose hand we touch today,’ we pray in class, a prayer that the children have come to really own.
Community, connection, awareness, respect, love—dance is all about sharing your joy. Our lives are as entwined as these dance figures, and our hope is to make them as beautiful.
Glenda decides we are ready to practice with music: 'Voy a reir, voy a bailar, vivir me vida, lalalala.'
'Candado!' she calls.
• Salsa Dancing by Delilah Smith •
March 22, 2016