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For many years I have worked hard to reduce the use of named moves in my social dancing. Almost all named moves are fixed sequences of basic figures with a beginning and an ending, a mini-dance following the Rueda template for how to construct couple moves for use in Rueda de Casino.

Just think of it! To base a social dance on X-number of fixed mini-dances (so-called moves), one after the other, is more or less the most mediocre and brain death concept one can imagine for how to dance as a couple in social dancing. Never the less, that is what most dance schools teach!

Moves are necessary in Rueda de Casino, they can be good for training purposes, and in social dancing, they are handy to have in the toolbox in an emergency when a Lead runs out of steam or for variation. But apart from that, moves are a dance killer.

By and large, the main mode of a social dance should be based on as small building blocks as possible, in ever changing combinations, that is on basic figures of mostly one count of eight, and even on half counts of Eight when a figure has options for the last part. The smaller the building blocks, the more options we have for developing our dance, and the easier it is to adapt to circumstances in a true music-driven fashion.

Just an example

My use of the basic figures Abanico, Exhíbela and Rodeo, repeated a couple of times and continued in different ways, as shown in the video, is impossible to imagine in a named Rueda de Casino couple move. Such way of dancing simply doesn’t exist in Rueda but should be the norm in social dancing. Pure inspirational magic, a different look and feel, not much in common with just doing “moves”.

Next week I might have forgotten this Abanico–Exhibela–Rodeo combo again for a while, or I have replaced one of the figures, or I have come up with something different, or I focus on some other old great combinations of a couple of figures I have had success with before, or on some crazy dance idea, I want to explore. To me, social dancing should be a search for something new and surprising on top of a rich baseline.

The bottom line is: A social dance should mainly be based not on moves but on basic figures. Moves should only be used as an exception to the rule. At times one can get tired of too much improvising, and in that situation, a good classic Rueda couple move can come in handy as a pause in the creative process!