Mambo in Chinatown

“Those are fu,” Pa said. “Words of power. When written by a master, they can contain demons.”

I hoped he was right.

Sixteen

I stood in front of the mirror with Ryan beside me. “Let’s start talking to your Irish hips about some Cuban motion. You need to learn how to move your hips. It’s like you’re waiting for a bus and you’re really bored, so you put all your weight on one leg.” He did it. “Good. Now you’re tired, so you shift your weight to the other leg.” He complied. “That’s it. So let’s do that together.”

I straightened my right leg and shifted my right hip back. He did the same. Then I straightened my left leg and shifted my left hip. He copied.

“You’re doing a good job but the problem is, your hips are only moving the tiniest bit. If I blinked, I would miss it.”

“Years of inhibitions. Hard to get rid of them without alcohol.”

“I can see that.” I stood behind him and had him do it again, placing my hands above his pelvic bones. As he straightened one leg, I helped him push the hip back. “Great. Now the other way. Shift, and shift. Your body is still resisting me.” He was tall and it was hard to see around him.

I stood in front of him and placed his hands on my hipbones and my hands over his. Much better. Now we could both watch what we were doing. “I’ll do it with you. Left, and right, and left, and right.” His hips started moving together with mine. I released his hands and held mine up high so he could see my stomach. “Cuban motion happens below the waist. The top stays still. It’s like there’s an ocean in between. Quick quick slow, quick quick slow.” I swung my hips back and forth while hardly moving anything above my waist at all. I repeated what I had learned. “The top is celestial: i

“Yin and yang,” he said.

I was so surprised, I twisted around to look up at him. “Exactly. Okay. Shift your weight again. Left, right, left.” His hands were warm on my hips and his breath was in my hair. The fabric of his pants brushed against that of my skirt.

“I don’t think I can do this.” His voice was strained.

I stopped. “What’s the matter? You’re doing fine.”

“Excuse me,” he said, and practically ran out of the ballroom.

When I stared after him, Mateo, who was leading a well-dressed Indian couple around the floor, leaned into me and whispered, “I think you made that lesson a bit too ‘hard’ for your friend.” He waggled his eyebrows wickedly and strolled off with his students, chuckling to himself.

I gasped, understanding what he meant, but sure he was pulling my leg, as always. Ryan returned a few minutes later, with a few droplets clinging to his eyelashes. It looked like he’d splashed water on his face. “Where were we?”

“Umm, why don’t you go ahead and practice that at home?” I said brightly. “Let’s go learn some steps now.”

—

Dominic made the official a

Everyone clapped while Simone gave me a little smirk from her place in the circle.

Dominic continued, “I will personally give the competitors free extra coachings throughout the coming months. I will also do their choreography if they so wish.”

I’d seen Dominic’s work and he always made the choreography suit the personality and abilities of the performers. It was hard to dance something that didn’t suit your body, and especially as Ryan and I were both so new, we needed all the help we could get.

However, even before we got started on the choreography, Dominic needed to evaluate us. Ryan and I stood in the small ballroom as he walked around the two of us, eyeing us both. Then he put on some mambo music and said, “Show me.”

Ryan and I started to dance. He only knew the moves from the Bronze Syllabus but I thought he led them pretty well. Invariably, we started stepping on the one beat instead of the two despite my firm grip on his arm, what the female professional dancers called the “Five Fingers of Death.”

“Stop.” Dominic paused the CD. “You’ve made a wise decision in choosing mambo.”

“What?” I said. Ryan winked at me, which I ignored.

Dominic said, “Because the technique in mambo remains basically the same from Bronze through Supreme Gold. The steps become more difficult but it’s not like American foxtrot, where you essentially have to learn a whole new dance when you progress to the higher levels.”

I nodded. I’d just started doing Silver foxtrot in dance session with the professionals. I loved its sweeping, gliding form but it seemed to have no co

He turned to Ryan. “You have a good body but you still have many traces of the athlete in you. Dance is not about ‘what,’ it is about ‘how.’ Not about getting the ball in the goal, any way possible. It’s about doing it with grace, precision, balance, emotion and beauty. Still, I foresee that performing the steps well will not be a permanent problem. Your timing is atrocious but I predict also that that will not remain an issue. You will go home, Ryan, and listen to the mambo CDs I give you and you will count out the beat to them, time and time again. Soon, you will learn to step on the two instead of the one. However.”

We both waited. “Your hips, they are a problem.”

Ryan groaned. “Why does everyone say that?”

Dominic faced me. “Charlie, you have to beat it into him to make sure we have some semblance of Cuban motion before the competition. I’m sure he will improve but you ca

“How?” Ryan asked.

“With this.” Dominic tapped Ryan’s bicep. “You can lift her.”

“You’re not serious,” I said.

“That sounds all right to me,” Ryan said. “Better than that hip stuff.”

“You will still need to do Cuban motion,” Dominic said. “But if we design choreography that has a number of fairly flashy lifts in it, then you will not need to rely so much on your Latin technique.”

I was terrified. “I don’t want to leave the ground. I’ve always been a very stable kind of person. Dancing is one thing, dangling in the air is another.”

“What, you don’t trust me?” Ryan said, pretending to look wounded.

“Well, I am telling you that if you want to look good on the dance floor, someone has to lift someone,” Dominic said. “Would you care to carry him, Charlie?”

I eyed Ryan’s frame. “No. But I still don’t see why we need them. I’ve never seen a student doing lifts.”

“That is precisely the point,” said Dominic. “Students don’t tend to do lifts. This will elevate your mambo to a professional level. In regular competition, lifts are not allowed because the floor is too crowded, but for this scholarship, you’ll be on the floor one couple at a time. Anything goes. And he can do it, I know.”

Ryan looked gratified. “What exactly will we have to do?”

Dominic walked to the door and called, “Nina, come over here, will you?” After a moment, her head appeared in the doorway. “Sweetheart, will you help me demonstrate a few lifts for our friends here?”