Joy in Motion

Finding Flow on the Dance Floor, Part 1: Social Dance as Sport

“Flow is a harmonious experience where mind and body are working together effortlessly, leaving the person feeling that something special has just occurred…This is because flow lifts experience from the ordinary to the optimal, and it is in those moments that we feel truly alive and in tune with what we are doing.”
- Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi

It has been called flow, peak experience, optimal experience, the zone, and deep play. The concept has been widely experienced and researched, and yet it remains elusive. Generally understood to be a rare, short-lived, and unexpected occurrence, it can’t be controlled, summoned, or grasped. However, the pure joy and freedom it brings prevents us from just dismissing it altogether. We continue to seek these moments because they hint at something greater and validate the time and effort we spend in their pursuit.

For the social dancer, flow provides the unrivaled feeling of deep connection with his or her body, the music, and another human being. Every social dance – from salsa and Argentine tango to the ballroom dances and west coast swing – requires physicality, musicality, communication, problem-solving, and creativity. These exhilarating challenges open up opportunities to experience flow. Although we can’t guarantee its occurrence, we can approach the dance in a way that will maximize our receptivity and, therefore, our likelihood of achieving that feeling of transcendence.

Because dance has so many layers or levels of meaning and understanding, it helps to approach flow in social dance from several different angles. Though there could never be an exhaustive or comprehensive list of approaches to the dance, my research of flow and the social dance experience have revealed four main approaches that help illuminate and cultivate flow on the dance floor:

Social dance as Sport.
Social dance as Game.
Social dance as Conversation.
Social dance as Art.

Part 1 will address how social dance can be approached as a sport. Please see also Parts 2 through 4 for how to approach social dance as a game, a conversation, and an art.

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Faces of Salsa: A Review

Copyright © 2009 Karin Norgard

For many, the word salsa connotes rhythm and excitement. For Leonardo Padura Fuentes, it represents the struggle of a people to create music with meaning. In Faces of Salsa: A Spoken History of the Music, the Cuban writer interviews thirteen men who figured prominently in the Latin music scene during salsa’s early development. Their various journeys explore music as a form of expression, protest, and inspiration. And they all point to a genre that has sought to reconcile flash with substance, popularity with meaning. They point, writes Fuentes, to a “salsa with a conscience”.

No discussion of salsa history is complete without the unsolvable debate over the very word “salsa”. How did the term come about, what music does it encompass, is it even a valid categorization of the music it connotes? Some of the very musicians responsible for making salsa what it is today give their take on the term and whether it should be used at all. Most interesting is Fania founder Johnny Pacheco’s take on the term that he is said to have created to market the music, as well as Cuban musicologist Radamés Giro’s more detached view on the label. The interviewees also discuss the roots of salsa, from it’s evolution from the Cuban son to the great variety of Caribbean influences to the development of its urban identity in the Latino barrios of New York.

The exploration of salsa’s roots and the labels that define it are not only a matter of history. Fuentes’ interviews reveal the conscious struggle of Latin musicians to maintain a balance between salsa as music and salsa as commodity. Music can inspire, enlighten, reveal, and criticize. It can speak to people’s conditions and point out injustices. It can also, on a purely musical level, push the limits of rhythm, instrumentation, and improvisation. But in spite of music’s role as an art and a craft, it is also a commercial product and requires an audience that is willing to pay. These interviews express the tension between evolving as an artist and evolving to fit the popular taste of consumers in the context of salsa’s unique story. They also explore the decline of the genre in the 1980s with erotic salsa and reveal the lessons that this decline has for salsa musicians in the future.

The ability of Fuentes’ book to touch on universal themes in salsa music extends also to the figures he interviews. Though the title emphasizes salsa – and all the complicated baggage that the term entails – Fuentes includes interviews from three merengueros who should never be left out of any serious discussion on Latin music over the past half century: Johnny Ventura, Wilfrido Vargas, and Juan Luis Guerra. And, though Fuentes is a Cuban writer and emphasizes the Cuban connection in salsa, he interviews Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban musicians. The interviews also make constant reference to Latin jazz (which is basically inseparable from salsa) as well as to the variety of influences across the Caribbean that have made salsa such a unique blend of musical elements.

What I enjoy most about this book is that Fuentes provides an excellent introduction to the central themes the interviews address and blends his own commentary throughout the book, keeping his voice and creating unity even with the variety of perspectives that he offers. His interviews manage to give insight into the history and culture of salsa while touching on universal themes that influence the development of every musical and creative genre. The only drawback for those who are not very familiar with salsa history and music is that the interviews are not preceded by short biographies or historical background on the references that his interviewees make. Those readers will get more from the book by doing a little historical research first to better inform their reading. However, Fuentes’ collection of interviews provides an enjoyable and stimulating variety of perspectives on the creation and continuous re-creation of salsa.

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Joy in Motion Survey

As Joy in Motion approaches its first anniversary, I am interested in receiving feedback on the website and looking for ways to improve in the New Year. Please take part in the growth of Joy in Motion by completing this survey. If you take the survey by January 31, you can enter to win Karin’s favorite read of 2008: Victor Wooten’s book, The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music.

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