Throughout this week, I had a lot of celebration to do. Not only was it my birthday, but also my dads and little cousins. For my birthday, I went clubbing and had a very interesting experience. I also attended a family party for my little cousins birthday party. Both were two extremely distinct experiences, and I would like to address the kinds of dancing that occur within cultures and the dancing tendencies that certain cultures have. I will be making general assumptions and stereotyping but also making keen observations as a dancer.

While I was in the club, it was a dismay to me that latin music was not played at all, although usually some latin music is played at clubs. This club boasts to be number one dance club in New York by the Zagat survey, yet no latin music was played. I thought this was interesting and was probably why there were not many latinos in the club in the first place. Instead, lots of techno and house music was played and some hip hop. I still enjoyed myself because these genres still have great beats, which I love dancing to. As I looked around, I saw the dancing styles of several caucasians, asians and hindus. There was a lot of free spirited dancing, some people were uncoordinated, others used their hips and some used their feet more than anything else and others just couldn't keep rhythm. Now, I wondered why it is that latinos have infamy of being the best dancers, why can't other cultures replicate the kind of coordination and the rhythm and the dance mastery that many latinos have? When I went to my cousins birthday party I figured it out.

Dance is an extremely important part of the hispanic culture, and it is rare to find a hispanic that does not know how to dance. This is because of the cultural practices that go on within the hispanic families. Children, like my little cousin, grow up listening to merengue, bachata and salsa and have already recorded rhythms in their little heads. At this two year olds party, there was only latin music playing and people either dancing or singing along to it. From the time that I was little, I remember attending endless family parties and dancing all night long at them. The dancing styles you either knew by watching or were taught in your early years. Mastery and fluid hip movement was acquired by practice and everything else would eventually fall into place later. Uncles and cousins would grab you by the hand and challenge you with new tricks and turns that you hadn't learned before. And as a dancer who has actually taken classes in latin jazz and salsa, I have had even more experience in acquiring this latin vibe into my dancing. Many people would die to learn how to dance like a great salsa dancer or merengue dancer and pay out of their own pockets to take classes. However, these movements are an aspect of a hispanics life, particularly Dominicans, that is injected into the bloodstream from the time that a baby is months old. It is part of the pride and joy of being hispanic and probably one of the many reasons I love dance so dearly.