A Depth of Latin Culture: The Meaning of an Accent (Part 4)

Afterword
To a native Spanish speaker, it's usually possible to place the origins of a person by the accent he or she carries. Salsa is no different, but it seldom occurs to my students to think 'what does my manner of dancing speak of me?'

What accents inform the Colombian, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Nuyorican and Venezuelan schools for example? Which of these are geographic, to be distinguished from the personal? What does the ungrounded the heel of the North American back-step actually mean (and it's not necessarily to do, as often professed, with not wanting to step on someone)?

Everything in the earlier parts can be distilled into one point: to achieve cultural depth, salsa dancers would need to learn more than salsa. Because how someone moves tells me plenty.

Maybe:

• the angle of your foot says you're quoting from urban Cuba;
• the shimmering quiver of your hips driven upwards from the knees is the voice of Puerto Rico's bomba;
  
• a certain stillness of your upper body hints at class distinction, perhaps from Caracas;
• your movement, inspired more by shells or skins, clues me to the kind of salsa playing in you car - or if you have any playing at all.
  

It's easy once you know where, and how, to look.

And for many, salsa is all they know and any accents I express pass them by unnoticed. It's a shame, because the subtext of a dance adds much to the whole enjoyment of it.

So leaping several logical steps ahead, perhaps the more pertinent question is, 'what would I want my dancing to say of me?'

looyenyeo