Rueda de Casino!

This week, I found a new favorite quote about dance. I am reading/listening to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and there is a line at the beginning about attendees of a wedding:

"Some do not dance anything at all, but simply hold each other's hands and allow the undisciplined joy of motion to express itself with their feet."   The undisciplined joy of motion...I can't think of a better way to express how I feel about dance, though I lack the eloquence of Sinclair (and boy is he eloquent in this book) in my expression. I have been quoting this to myself all day, while thinking about salsa class tomorrow and looking forward to it more than usual.


I mentioned a while ago about taking a salsa class as a means of completing part of a New Year's resolution. Well, here's that post I promised I was going to make about my salsa class. The style I'm dancing is called Rueda de Casino. The video above is actually some of my instructors and classmates dancing this style! Maybe one day if they get me on video, I will post that, but don't hold your breath, guys.  It's a group dance that started in the streets of Cuba and is danced in a circle or rueda, where moves are called out and partners are constantly switching. In Cuba, the moves would differ a lot even between different areas of the same city because people would make up their own and then groups jealousy guarded their own moves in their communities. The history of this dance and the flexibility and variety of moves is one of the things I have loved most about learning it! I've talked about dance as a passion of mine on this blog before; one that, in different phases of my life, hasn't been maintained as regularly or thoroughly as I really need in order to to feel fulfilled. Taking this class has been slowly filling that gap, teaching me to be confident in movement again and helping me feel that undisciplined joy of motion, and I am so happy and thankful to have dance to look forward to every week again!