That was supposed to be a pun worthy of my husband Benedict Ambrose. Meanwhile, I didn't know what bachata was until I half-joked to my visiting sister that we could go to an Edinburgh Salsa Night, and we actually did.
Happy Epiphany, by the way! Happy New Year and happy continuing Christmas. B.A. and I had an amazing Christmas holiday with many built-in treats because my sister Tertia decided to fly across the ocean to join us.
If you have followed the prices of transatlantic airfares in December, you will know how generous Tertia's decision was. Thus, we pushed the boat out and reserved a table at Prestonfield House and bought tickets for both a public ceilidh and a New Year's Day race meeting. Later we added tickets to the local pantomime, and my sister treated me to the Salsa Night.
Tertia is a keen salsa dancer. She goes out and salsas at least once a week. She is also fluent in Spanish and has travelled widely in Latin America. She even took tango lessons in Argentina. Let's just say, she knows her stuff.
"Is it salsa or bachata?" she asked organizers both electronically and in person. She does not like bachata, so she wanted to be clear on this point.
"It's a mix," they told her.
Innocent me had no idea what the difference was. I know almost nothing about Latin (let alone Dominican Republican) music, and I was looking forward to Salsa Night with secret gloom. However, I remembered that I, however improbably, now teach youngsters how to waltz, so I asked Tertia for a preparatory salsa lesson. I salsa'd in the sitting-room, and I salsa'd at the bus stop. I felt more enthusiastic after that.
When we got to the club, which was in a part of Edinburgh I had mentally apostrophized as dodgy, we discovered a smallish dark and crowded room with coats and bags piled up along a wall. Couples were dancing about hands-in-hands, and the DJ seemed to be playing pleasant tunes. Tertia gave the room a knowledgeable glance, and before I knew it she was dancing the salsa elegantly with a stranger.
Sadly, there was not as much salsa as bachata. My sister discontentedly told me that they were playing one salsa for every three bachatas, and that people were dancing the bachata in a weird, twisty, inauthentic way.
I enjoy dancing done well--or not done well, but joyfully--but I did not enjoy watching strangers dancing the bachata. I have since discovered that the richer, more educated people of the Dominican Republic did not like the bachata, either. It was associated with the very poor and with brothels.
Believe me, the brothel element was very much on display that night. Some of the women danced in a creepy, over-sexual way, like pole dancers in movies, only with men as the pole. One girl kept flicking her head back in a way that made my flesh crawl.
To distract myself, I though about my lovely waltzing-and-(currently)-swing-dance parties, and how I would never permit any Nice Catholic Girl I knew to dance the bachata, even if I had to knock her down and sit on her. It also made me think about Catholic critics of all round dances, and how right they would be if all round dances were indeed like that. Finally, I felt 100% justified in creating spaces in which Catholics can enjoy dancing without being exposed to scenes like the one before me.
Tertia consented to dance the bachata, but in a refined way that didn't look (to me) too different from the way she dances the salsa. To ensure her tastes were respected, she explained to partners how she preferred to dance it, as she told me later. (I enjoyed overhearing her speaking Spanish, but I didn't understand a word. The Spanish-speakers, unsurprisingly for Edinburgh, were not from Latin America but from Spain.) I'm very impressed and edified that my sister has the confidence to negotiate how to dance a dance before dancing it. It's a pity, though, that she had to do that.
Because the organizers of the event seem to have been kind and thoughtful people, I hesitated in writing this post. It's not that I have a problem being judgemental. (This current fad for refusing to judge behaviour is not good for society.) It's that the organizers are real people, and I am concerned that some Kind Friend will find my post and send it to them. However, I so rarely go out to dance clubs these days that the contrast between this dance and my dances really made an impression.
The next night we went to the very not-sexy public ceilidh. It was great fun, if crowded, chaotic, and a tiny bit dangerous. The best men dancers wore kilts, I wore my MacLean sash, and when crowd all took hands and sang "Auld Lang Syne", I felt quite choked up with Scottish-Canadian pride.
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