Transcript
Understanding the music in bachata. The most important thing, other than building a connection with your partner is building a connection with the music. You have to train your ears to listen to every single detail in there. There’s gonna be a base, a bongo, a guitar and other instruments that are going to make your dancing come alive. So what I want you to always think about when you’re dancing by yourself or with a partner is listen to the energy of the music.
The music might be mellow, sometimes smooth, sometimes very rough, sometimes very fast or very stacky and I want you to use your ears to kind of like pinpoint when the music changes, and using your body energy, you’re going to transfer that to your partner. And then you’re going to have the same energy that you have in the music. And remember since we’re only listening to one song, and we’re listening to the same song, our energies also have to match.
Now I’m going to just demonstrate this pattern. It’s going to be a very simple pattern, but we’re going to change the energy level. So we’re going to go basic basic. We’re going to open open and in out in. Open and in out in. So what I want you to notice is how this is gooing to change with different energy. So let’s say that the music is very smooth, we’re going to go one, two, three tap, five, six, seven push away.
You keep your posture, not too much movement just very smooth, very mellow, but you’re still interacting with each other. Now if the music is kind of like the traditional Dominican music that is very, very stacked up and very fast, you’re going to think a little bit maybe shorter steps, but more fast paced. So you’re going to think more one, two, three tap, five, six, seven and push away, in out in, and push away, in out in.
So the one thing to notice is when you’re dancing smooth, you can smooth out your feet on the ground a little bit more, so you don’t have to pick it up every single time, but when the music is stacked up, you pick up your feet a little bit more. So we’re going to demonstrate the different energy with some music. So this is nice and smooth, nice and relaxed and now we’re going to go into a little bit more energy and now, back to smooth. So what you’re doing is you’re listening to the music to understand where the breaks are in the section change and you’re using that to build a connection with your partner.
So, if you want to dance a little bit, more stacked up, I get my partner’s posture to follow mine, and I stack up my feet as well, rather than if you wanted to smooth it out a little bit more and now we’re dancing a little bit more smooth, kind of like skating on the ground. So remember to always train your ears to listen to every single detail in the speed of the music and that is how we change our energy dancing bachata.
