Today was filled with dancing! From watching and joining in with my host family dancing on New Year’s and seeing handicrafts in the markets and stores resembling dancing, I have been eager to actually learn and partake in this part of Ecuadorian culture. My learning began with the dance class at CEDEI taught by Patricia. The class focused on the Merengue and Salsa dance; and at first it seemed like simple steps, but it turned out to be challenging! My entire class was working up a sweat because boy did we work our hips! When I wasn’t watching myself look silly in the mirror or watching my classmates to see how they were doing, I was focusing on Patricia because she was emulating the Ecuadorian culture right in front of me. One thing that stood out to me from her dancing was her use of her entire body. All of the dance moves we learned were various steps with the feet with technically no arm movements that went along with them. However, Patricia always incorporated the movement of her arms which brought the simple feet movements into a dance. She was also using her face to make expressions to convey different messages at different times. For example, she would look down at times for a slight moment, look upward when doing the circular turns, widen her eyes with certain movements, and also scrunch her lips with certain movements. She was using her entire body to feel the rhythm and convey the dance message. In addition to seeing her use her entire body, I especially enjoyed watching Patricia dance with the music. For myself when the music turned on; I was much more excited, motivated, and could move easier because I had the music to relate the moves too. But for Patricia when the music turned on, her dancing turned into a whole new thing. She was more vibrant, energetic; and it looked not as if she was simply dancing to the music, but that she was dancing with the music. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to take this class to not only improve my dancing skills, but to expand my knowledge of this part of the culture.
The dancing fun however did not end with our dance class! At night time, the class and I went out in Cuenca together, and then a small group of us went to a couple discotecas. These places are where I got to see the dancing of this culture in action. I first observed people dancing because I was too nervous to get out on the dance floor myself. The discotecas were extremely crowded: there were people dancing in every part of the establishment. Everyone was also singing along to the songs as they moved their entire body to the beat of the song. People dancing in partners were dancing closely together as their bodies moved in sync. Everyone’s eyes were glistening, their cheeks blushing, and they had frequent bursts of smiles indicating pure happiness and no stresses. After much observation, I built up the courage to finally put what I learned today in action and dance with an Ecuadorian man! After a little bit of shaking off my nerves, the dancing came naturally. The music was so upbeat and everyone was having so much fun around me that I started to dance with little effort. I felt the music run through me and my body simply moved to the rhythm. My partner and I were in sync: I stepped forward when he stepped backward, and I spun when he held my arm up to spin. I shook my hips to every beat that I was not spinning to. I am confident I began dancing with the music rather than to the music. It was a feeling I had never experienced before, but I really enjoyed it. I felt connected to the music. Once again, I am so grateful that I was able to go to the discoteca and see and partake in the dancing, because I was able to experience it first-hand and feel how Ecuadorians feel when they dance—or I think so. Here’s to always being open to learning about other cultures and stepping outside your comfort box in order to do so!
