As I continue to go out dancing 5-6 days a week at a salsa club here, there and everywhere, it’s really striking just how much the male lead has changed over the years. During its origins, and in its indigenous forms, salsa was a very sensual dance of courtship, flirtation, and trying to “close the deal”. Men would throw on their best rags and break off their best moves, exhibiting as much machismo as humanly possible to suggest and convey all kinds of subliminal messages to their partner, that they were the “sh_t”. The moves on the floor set the tone for the moves that would hopefully follow far away from the dance floor in places not as public. I mean, brothers would bring it all to the floor. All of their motions, movements, gyrations and leads were strong and were designed to impress and show their partner just how manly they were. Conversely, the woman’s response to this strong display of manliness were very seductive and playful motions and gyrations; it was truly a give and take… a genuine flirtatious back and forth playfulness.
But, it appears that somewhere along the line, things got twisted! What happened to the male and machismo in salsa began to resemble what had happened to the male dancer on Soul Train. Ok, now I know that you’re asking yourself just what in the hell does that mean? But check it out, show how old you really are and if you were really paying attention.
Let me take you back there; remember during the initial days of Soul Train way back in 1972-1973 when we used to meet up at Halldale Park to catch the studio bus to the Soul Train tapings. Brothers from the neighborhood schools, wearing what was fashionable in the neighborhood, and prepared to do the dance steps that we did at the neighborhood parties every Saturday night. To get selected for those key camera positions on stage, we began bringing a change of clothes to the tapings; not just our regular party rags, but clothes that might get us noticed and selected for those televised spots, not the dance positions on the floor looking up at the stage. Remember how the show’s popularity grew and the female dancers began to invite their “special” dance partners who had more flamboyant clothing and who’s flamboyant dancing styles were not from the neighborhood. Surely, you remember those “pretty boys” – boys who looked good on camera with their soft, smooth, somewhat (I’m being gracious now) feminine moves that almost mimicked the moves of their female dance partners. Those couples got selected for those key positions on stage and the rest of us continued to dance on the floor below the stage.
Clearly, many of our female dancing friends began recruiting dance partners from outside of our neighborhood that looked “pretty” and made them look good, thus increasing their odds of being selected and made into a STAR by virtue of their position on the stage. Come on, any of this seems familiar, now? The male dancer with the strong male persona (and moves) slowly disappeared from the strategic dance and camera positions on Soul Train. Hey, if you don’t believe what I’m saying, check out some of the Soul Train reruns.
Man, this same thing seems to be happening in current day salsa. Men seem to be sacrificing their “maleness, manliness and strength”, that is evidenced in strong, macho moves and leads for the “soft, cute and pretty” moves that they are learning “styling classes” and from watching the ever growing number of ballroom dance programs that are flooding the airwaves. Hey, I'm no woman and I'm oftentimes clueless about what women think, but men on the dance floor wearing tights, skin gripping rhinestone shirts unbottomed down to the navel revealing a hairless chest, hats cocked to the side and accentuating every move with a soft, feminine-like hip gyration, head or neck jerk or raised arm or finger movement can't really be a turn-on.....can it?
From my limited experiences, women are attracted to our manliness and strength. My brothers in the struggle, we bring our strength and manliness into our jobs, into our interactions with each other, into our sports and to the bedroom; we've got to also bring it onto the dance floor.