The Bucharest Social Dance Method

by Adrian Mirel Petrariu, Ph. D

The Bucharest Social Dance School was established in Bucharest (Romania), in 2015, as part of the Egos Project Business Group, with the declared purpose of creating a space of continuous evolution and practice in regard to the contemporary social dance.

In order to do so, we have put together a think tank of dancers and teachers having experience and background in various dances, setting egos aside and learning from each other, often under informal, spontaneous hierarchies. This has lead in short time to form in my understanding of a very fast method of learning social dance comprising the most important and valuable rules and practices.
It is called a social dance method because it is essentially founded on the act of communicating by leading and following and by default on the relationship between leader and follower. Because of this, it has a common ground for all dance styles structured around this kind of relationship and it can be extended to specific dance styles like kizomba or tango argentino, according to their specificity.
It is my sincere desire that anyone who fell in love with a specific social dance style to benefit from this method of intelligence in order to surpass the social interests, the lack of information and the imposture within and around and to reach the posture any sincere dancer wishes to achieve: to really express oneself in the act of dancing together.

General principles and guidelines

1. The impulse- step correspondence basic rule. This rule is the most fundamental for the act of leading and it states that there is no step of the follower without an impulse of movement received from the leader. (Exceptions to this rule come later on, when the leader may lead several steps of the follower proportional to the energy of the impulse). But in the beginning and for the most part of the time spent dancing, the energy of a singular impulse of movement emitted by the leader matches a single step of the follower. Be very careful, the impulse of movement emitted by the leader is not to be mistaken for the steps taken by the leader. The leader can take steps without signaling the follower to move and the other way around, the leader can stand still while leading the follower into movement. The mirroring of the leader is a great way for the follower to begin the act of following naturally. The follower has also a very specific own freedom of adding to movement (like supplementary body waves or whips) but only around the main trajectory imprinted by the leader and as long as the impulses of movement received from the leader are observed.

2. There are no “wrong” steps in social dance. The only really severe mistake the follower can do is actually not observing the first basic, fundamental, rule of one step- one impulse (and usually, out of desire of not taking the “wrong” step, the follower is taking all the wrong steps by continuously adjusting the stepping to the steps of the leader, instead of listening to the received impulses of movement). Basically, any transfer of weight from one foot to another without being led to do so is the only “wrong” step possible and in the end it is a question of leading conflict generated by a follower acting as a leader. Even so, the mindset should never be focused on the mistake in terms of steps, but always regarded as a lack of communication. This means that an experienced leader is able to manage easily and quickly any weight transfer done by the follower by absorbing the parasite movement and focusing on reestablishing the communication with the dance partner. Just always remember that dancing is more of a game than an “important” matter and activity.

3. The leader should always focus on the steps of the follower. As a leader, your steps are not that important. What is important is what steps you are leading to your follower. When perfect control is achieved in this respect, your steps begin to flow naturally and at a maximum degree of freedom and flexibility. This principle engenders four important rules: (1) The leader always knows on which foot the follower has the weight. (2) When the leader does not know, the leader transfers the weight on purpose on one of the follower’s feet. If the weight was already been there, problem solved. If the weight wasn’t there, it is now, so problem solved again. (3) The leader takes at any time as many and as various steps necessary to adjust his stepping to the steps led to the follower. (4) The leader begins the movement before the follower does but ends it after the follower does. When the leader is the man and the follower is the woman, which is the usual and natural situation, the leader should be focused to expose the woman as a jewel, to show her to the world in her best postures and poses by creating the pattern of her movement and stretching on the musical story. As the responsibility of the leader is to create the movement story to match the music story, the responsibility of the follower is to look and feel as good as possible by filling the space of that story.

4. Never replace natural street walk with “dance walk”. There are a lot of people saying at the beginning that they can’t dance, but that is not true. If you know how to walk on the street, then you know how to dance, provided that you understand that dancing is just something you add in terms of connection, musicality and grace on the way you walk on this planet. For instance, the dissociation of movement between the lower and upper part of your body happens naturally on the street, because your body maintains balance by balancing your hands in the counter-direction to the movement of your legs. The dissociation in dancing is obtain in the very same way, only a little bit exaggerated, for showing off and for adding drama in order to express the music you dance. In any moment you find difficult to maintain balance it usually means you have replaced the natural movement of your body with something you think you should look like. Needless to say that the more natural you move, the better you actually look and not the other way around. A very good exercise in this respect is by always traveling from point A to point B in the classroom by using the same leading and following principles, even if we just move to a warmer or more spacious spot. Never switch “dancing mode” to “walking mode”. In fact, if you want to upgrade the way you look while dancing, you should actually upgrade the way you look while walking.

5. Add drama in dance and avoid it in your personal life. We all need to discharge our emotional energy somehow. The only question is how, where and with whom. Social dancing is the perfect place to become drama queens; in fact, the more drama we express, the more passionate our dance becomes. Roll your eyes, pretend to leave, pretend you come back, look aside exactly like you would to in a romantic break up, be victim, be aggressor, be savior only while dancing, and consume your appetite for emotional drama in this place for better dancing and better, healthier relationships in your personal life. Of course, this only pertains to the mimicry and not to the actual relation with the dance partner. We should be avoiding dramatic games in the actual relation with our partner at all costs.

6. The exact mode of training your dance at the class is the actual way of how you will dance at the social parties. This entices a few rules or guidelines to observe in practicing and training social dance: you should always smile to your partner, you should always have your head held high and your eyes moving freely, you are always responsible for your own pleasure in dancing- irrespective of other circumstances, you should take each step of your dance with the same posture and the same commitment as if it were the last step you ever take.

7. The connection establishes by itself when pursuing a common goal. The “fucking famous connection” in dancing is actually the common pursuit of the next step to be taken together, i.e. the common pursuit of communication to this end. There is no need for special attention, closing eyes, “spiritual” connection to your own body and so on and so forth. As a dancing couple, you just need to have a common goal, to follow it with mutual sincerity, without blaming and power games and to embrace the formal hierarchy of leader and follower, each of them with its specific responsibilities, liberties and possibilities. It is more important for the leader to never end his movement by himself before the follower does only for the sake of musicality and it is more important for the follower to accept the mistakes of the leaders in terms of musicality than to dance each other separately, because in the latter case the reason for which we dance as a couple is not met any more. The connection of the couple with the music comes after and appears only when there is harmony in the leader- follower relationship because first we have to communicate as a couple in order to be able to dance as a couple later.

8. Leading and following
The relation between leader and follower can be better understood if we understand that we all have in our lives a zone of control, a zone of influence and a zone over which we cannot act in any way.
The control zone of the leader is over his own body movements and feelings. The only expectations a leader should have is over himself. When communicating his intentions to the follower, the leader should understand that he has only an influence over the movement and feelings of the follower, and that the communication act of leading is not about controlling the follower but rather ask her nicely or making her fall into it, seducing her, at the same time never going into supplication nor manipulation though. In other words, a good leader tries to have a good influence to be followed. The out of control zone is in the factors which affect the dancing and which cannot be influenced in any way.
The dance may be thus limited by any of the two: the leader limits the dance by his personal creativity and capacity of leading, i.e. communicating with the follower and the follower limits the dance by acting as a leader and stepping actively without being led, passive or even passive-aggressive attitude or lack of response to the impulses received from the leader.

Technical key points

The fundamental steps. Many dance styles are known to have “basic steps” or “characteristic steps”. In truth, there is no such thing. While there is also true that there are some very used simple patterns to begin with, on the other hand all social dances have in common what it’s called fundamental steps or possibilities of movement in couple. These are derived from the positioning of each partner related to the axis between them and there are basically only two possibilities related to it: having the legs open or having the legs crossed. If we add the direction of movement to it, we obtain two possible crossed steps: the front cross, when we walk forward and the back cross, when we walk backwards and two possible open steps: the front open step, when the embrace is face to face and the back open step, when the embrace is reversed, face to back. In the classical, used most of the time in social dance, embrace, which is that standing face to face, there are only three fundamental steps: the front cross, the back cross and the open step. If we experiment with the embrace, as in spinning the partner for instance, the open step divides too in the two possibilities mentioned but in the end the entire dance is composed only out of these 3 possibilities: front cross, back cross and open step and this is why they are considered to be the fundamental steps of the social dance. These steps can be taken in any direction so it must not be mistaken an open step with a side step, because the first is related to the axis of the couple and the second is related to the axis of each dancer individually.

The decomposition of the step. In order to better understand what a step is and what possibilities are attached to each and every one of it and also to obtain balance and aesthetics, it is most useful to break it down to its components. A step is composed out of the extension of the free of weight foot on the trajectory intended by the leader, the midway level 0 horizontality check point and the final transfer of weight. That midway point, marked by the moment when one ankle passes another while walking is like a “?” punctuation mark. It is the moment of discontinuity when anything may intervene safely (i.e. keeping perfect balance), any change of direction (horizontally or vertically or both), a lock, a declination of axis, etc. It is also the point where supplementary movements may be added to a simple step, like a body wave. A transfer of weight, for instance, is something different by a “normal” step for the simple reason that it lacks the extension part. The heel of the foot which has the weight transferred and committed on it must be completely on the floor at all times: there are a lot of ladies dancing with both heels always up or with the weight distributed on both feet and this is a mistake from the perspective of this method, because it limits the possibilities of dancing, for instance, sweeping and it also prevents the aesthetics of the hip sensual movements and the stretching of knees to happen.

Levels. The walking on planet Earth is a controlled fall. This means that any step is a variation of at least two vertical levels: from perfect horizontality, or level 0, at body’s natural height, to a lower level of movement, where the feet are at a distance one from another, equal to the length of the step. This is the first variation of vertical movement between two levels and it is used by the leader to communicate the follower either the intention to lock and keep the follower at level 0, with the ankles of the follower held together or to let the energy of the couple fall to the ground in any desired direction which equates with the intention of the leader to lead to the follower a step in that direction. The common walking is actually a wave between these two vertical levels. The golden rule for the follower is that if the sensation of falling on the face appears, this means a step should be taken. For instance, the difference in leading between a usual step and an inclination of the axis of the follower is to be found in this specific sensation. If the leader locks the follower on level 0 and the follower has the sensation of imponderability, no matter how the leader declines the axis the follower will just stay there. On top of this basic wave of movement additional variations of horizontality can be added. When going upwards, the follower always expresses the intention of the leader using the foot which has no weight on it, in the direction and on the trajectory of that intention. When going downwards, the first effect is the brake of the movement of the follower and the freezing on the soli and the continuation of the leading beyond this point, to the lower levels, will usually require the bending of the knees. The vertical levels in leading and movement were introduced and extensively explained by Alexandru Eugen Cristea in his book Tango for Teachers, Magisteria, 2015, Bucharest Social Dance Collection, Vol. 1.

The natural instincts. The Bucharest Social Method uses the natural instincts prewired in the human organism to enhance the act of communication between leader and follower. This principle has many applications… The free look maintained during dancing ensures that the body is relaxed and it keeps its own balance. Looking at a fixed, single point it makes the body tense and static, exactly like sitting on a computer. We encourage looking freely around while dancing with your partner for a natural, balanced, relaxed expression; Leading the impulse of the movement downwards will make the partner to stop naturally, because anyone on the street would stop naturally if you would step downwards next to them; Thinking of the next step you take while dancing will make your body adjust itself accordingly and step there without effort and without losing balance. This is especially useful while chaining front crosses or back crosses. And so on and so forth... In this method we use as warm-up the casual street walking together of the couple across the room in all possible positions of the leader related to the follower: at the right side, at the left side, in front of the follower, behind the follower combined with all cross and open steps possible, facing the same direction or opposite directions. Almost any “steps” to be found in social dance will be probably found naturally during warm-up using these principles.

Two systems of walking. This is a key point that should be made very clear to anyone: there are two possible systems of walking together and both are equally perfectly valid. The two possibilities are created by the possibilities of the leader to step with the same foot as the follower or with the opposite foot. When the leader steps with the opposite foot (left or right) in the face to face embrace, the walking is parallel; and more comfortable because of the space created in this way and it is used in 80% of the danced time. When the leader steps with the same foot (left or right) in the face to face embrace, the walking is crossed and it needs a little adjustment and repositioning in order to be comfortable and not stepping on the follower’s toes. It must be stressed that this is the alternative we need to the parallel system in order to complete our dance; besides, some elements and figures are only possible in the crossed system. The exercise of checking the ankle of the partner when stepping, in either of these systems is meant to teach us how to find the proper space for our steps.

Highways and positioning. Positioning becomes a child’s play once the leader becomes aware of the three possible highways: in front of the follower, to the right side of the follower and to the left side of the follower. Combining these highways with the different possibilities of positioning related to the follower (side to side, facing the same direction, facing opposite directions, half turned in front embrace, front to back embrace and so on and so forth) we obtain almost every dancing step possible, even without becoming aware of the actual permutations and combinations of the three fundamental steps.

Counting steps. This is the primary method used in dance schools in order to learn patterns that match with the musical signature. In Bucharest Social Dance Method we discourage this because it must be put at its place for what it is: just another exercise and not a primary method to learn how to dance. We use counting only to establish connection between the intellect and the body movements and when we do so we count loudly, because the actual movement of the mandible while counting is actual the reason for this connection to take place.

Continuous movement and connectors. The social dancing implies usually a lot of walking, or simply put, walking is the basis for any construction of the social dance. There is an unspoken truth about the social dancing and that is that the follower gets bored very, very easily while standing still. The more and unexpected walking is taking place, the more the follower is preoccupied with the actual dance and the lesser time is available for existentialist thinking and crisis. The degree of improvisation should not exceed 20% of the actual dance in order to provide a safe environment at the same time with excitement. In the rest of the time the leader should follow typical patterns but should be doing it by moving as much as possible (of course, according to the musical story as well). Any leader should master perfectly several combinations of steps classical for the respective style of dance or at least several personal favorite combinations of steps in order to be able to move continuously by leading them and to be resting in leading them in order to buy time to think about something improvised or something not very well remembered. These are called connector steps or connectors.

Intention, tension and force leading. This aspect is the pinnacle of the Bucharest Social Dance Method because it brings clarity about the three possible way of leading, depending on the degree of physical contact. The highest degree of communicating with the follower is leading the intention. For this, no physical contact whatsoever is necessary, except the visual one. While it looks a lot like Jedi powers it is actually less mystical than this: the leader actual visualizes the spots on the floor where the follower should take the next step and the body of the leader will naturally indicate to the body of the follower that trajectory, using the natural instincts mentioned above. The key concept in the intention leading is invitation and space: everything is about the space given for movement by vacuum pull or the space taken by pushing over the limit of the personal comfort zone. When the fine tuning is added, everything becomes possible in all directions, vertical and horizontal and the finest and most complicated trajectories can be lead only by intention. The intention leading is the core for all forms of leading in Bucharest Social Method. This means that when the communication by intention fails, the leader employs the next possible form of communication, which is communication by tension. Tension is intention transmitted to the follower via embrace or dancing frame, by suggesting the trajectory of the desired movement or step using muscular tension that way. This way of leading often requires some very stiff dancing frames and it also has the characteristic of losing sensitivity over relative short periods of time, because the muscles of our body naturally adjust to tension and do not react to it any more. If tension also fails and in other several special cases, the third way of leading may be used: the physical force, which is effectively a manipulation of the follower’s body in the desired direction. This may be achieved by using hands, feet, hip, sometimes even the entire body movement. Some acrobatic moves cannot be performed without it and some other figures or elements, like sweeps, are usually done using this manipulation or at least creating the illusion that the actual physical push is used, even when the follower is lead into that step by tension or intension, because a figure like a sweep is all about this effect in the first place. Other dance teaching methods have never included nor heard of the intension leading or if they had they consider one should get there after mastering the tension and force leading, but the truth is lower forms of leading will never lead to higher forms of leading. In Bucharest Social Method we go from inner, higher leading to outer, lower leading, depending on the actual conditions on the field, and never try to do the other way around, because it’s almost impossible, let alone highly inefficient.

Patterning and improvisation. There are a lot of women saying that they have difficulties in being lead. Personally, I haven’t met even one that does not follow the lead naturally in a question of minutes. But the elephant in the room is that as long as the leading is actually just following a pattern learned previously together, this is not actual leading, and the follower tends to do that pattern individually, sometimes even better than the “leader” and according to another expression of the musical story. What are patterns? Patterns are series of various steps learned by heart in a specific order in order to dance a certain dance in a certain style. The patterns are usually put up together by experienced dancers, trying to combine for best looks and musicality the most used combinations of steps and elements and these patterns create in time what is called a certain dance style and sometimes “the real” this or another dance style. In truth, any pattern is a specific permutation of the fundamental steps of the social dance, i.e. the cross and open steps of the leader with the cross and open steps of the follower, together with the permutation of directions of movement (movements in the same direction- a favor or movements in the opposite direction- contra). Patterns together with counting are the primary methods used widely by dance schools. The degree of freedom in dance of a dancer is measured in how much patterning related to improvisation is compelled to use in order to express the musical story. Improvisation is just dancing freely, using and leading steps linked not my memory but by inspiration on the spot.

The half moon. The half moon is the most useful and basic pattern possible, because it’s the first complete combination of the three fundamental steps. It is achieved by using the natural alternating of the two fundamental possibilities: cross, open, cross, open, and for achieving the completeness and complexity of the movement the directions are also added. The half moon is defined by the sequence of back cross, open step, front cross, open step, back cross, open step, front cross, and so on and so forth, in packets of three. It can be led linearly or curved and it can be lead or danced in circles around the dance partner for the most convenient way of moving around the other one. It can be one of the exceptions of the fundamental rule of one impulse one movement because a half moon can be lead with a single, yet more powerful and with circularity added impulse so in this case we obtain three steps instead of one for a single impulse of movement. The reason for which this pattern is among the technical key concepts of the Bucharest Social Dance Method is that by observing it a lot of otherwise apparently complicated patterns become not only easy but also common in leading in following.

Musicality. The songs we dance to usually have three layers, which compose the musical story: the beat, the instruments and the voice. The dancers may dance together or even separate on any of them; as long as there is awareness about this aspect and a choice is made. They can also be matched to the three possibilities of movement: static, walking straight and circular.

The concepts of movement. The concepts of movement are abstract actions which can be used in the actual dance as tools to replace or to reinterpret the “patterning”. Leading the follower around you, leading the follower outside and then back inside, leading the follower from your right to your left, drawing a geometrical figure on the dance floor, all these can be used in order to learn to dance in a more fun and easier way.

Specific styles

The idea when dancing social a certain, particular, style of music is to adapt the dancing to the peculiarities of that music. While it is also true that in social dancing because there are fundamental steps derived from the physical possibilities of movement of the couple these steps can be danced on any music, nevertheless in order to achieve the artistic act of expressing a certain music style, these steps have to match the musical story, the atmosphere and the cultural background of the respective music style.  

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