Is the International Bachata Dance Scene Missing the Point?

After five years Bachata Dance weekends, festivals and congresses, it seems like the Bachata Train is nearly flying off its tracks. The point of knowing history is to learn from our mistakes and make a better future. The international Bachata Dance scene is making the same mistakes as Salsa made in the (recent) past.

Many professional Salsa and Mambo dance instructors jumped on the Bachata wagon as soon as its popularity started growing worldwide. The evolutionary path of Bachata dancing is showing uncanny similarities with that of Salsa. At the beginning, Bachata dance only consisted of a basic “quick-quick-slow-tap-or-hip thrust” basic and footwork. This can be compared with the Cuban Son and Mambo.  The progression of Bachata keeps roughly the same trajectory as Salsa, but in a different time frame. For example: the transformation of Bachata from a forbidden romantic dance to a social dance form with many Dips, Tricks and Show dance elements happened in a couple of years instead of decades. And, the diversification of Bachata into sub-genres also happened overnight in comparison to Salsa.

Now, in 2010, Bachata dancers are starting to experience the same problems as many Salsa and Mambo dancers have had in the past and are still loathing at the present. The main problem – getting beaten on the dance floor by other uncaring dancers – is also happening on the Bachata dance floor today. Bachatango is very nice and sexy, but it can become dangerous when ladies are kicking their feet behind without knowing or caring if there is another dancer dancing there.

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Bachata is now in - what I refer to as - a “Medium Stage Development”: the Bachata dance floor is occupied by dancers taking it slow, others who choose to deploy as much fancy tricks as they possibly can and those who combine both.

Some international Bachata instructors are teaching Dips, Tricks and Acrobatic dance moves without giving any warnings, or they upload their material on YouTube without the warnings they gave during their workshops. Most Salsa dancers with years of dance have witnessed or have experienced accidents on the social dance floor, which were caused by this unchecked behavior.

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