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The classic concept of leading and following, that the Follow should just follow and that the Lead decides the repertoire and almost anything about the dance, does not make sense in a modern world. It is so antiquated that most people either stay away from social dancing or they accept the antiquated Lead/Follow roles as a price to pay to get an opportunity to dance.

Modern dance styles with dance roles that better reflects modern living have not yet emerged. While we wait, we can practice Role Rotation (I train as a Follow twice a week) and develop concepts like Active Following. And we can set up rules and requirements for the role of the Lead so the Lead is less likely to abuse his power and responsibilities.

The Lead must create a couple dance that have the look and feel of equals dancing, where both the Lead and the Follow are the heroes of the dance. They must both shine. The Lead must always modify his dance to the level of the Follow. The Lead should always do all what is within his powers to make the Follow dance as good as possible within her talent and skill-level.

Give the Follow a chance

Since the Lead decides the repertoire of the dance, and is dancing his own repertoire each and every time he goes social dancing, he knows his own dance down to the last detail and has a huge advantage compared to a given Follow that might experience his way of dancing for the first time.

Not only that. The Lead can plan and prepare all sorts of stunts, gimmick, fancy footwork, styling and Musicality reactions, and he knows exactly where to pull it of in his dance and for how long time, and he can stop at any moment and start something else if needed or as he like.

The Follow is always busy following, catching-up with the Lead, often confined and restricted by two handed figures and Nudos (knots) so tight that she can hardly breath. The Follow never knows in advance what she will be able to do where and when in the dance and for how long, and will most likely fall behind or get started too late if there is an opportunity. And as soon as she finally gets her act together, the Lead has most likely already moved on to something else she must relate to and try to follow.

Unless the Lead has trained for years, not how to shine himself, but how to facilitate the Follow’s dance, and unless the Lead really makes an effort to give the Follow room, she is most likely doomed to be just a secondary character in the dance. So this is what we should ask all Leads: How do you set the Follow up for fantastic dancing?

The Lead could, if he wanted to, completely steal the dance from the Follow and make the dance all about himself. Self-promoting Leads that has reduced the Follow to an assistant and often even to a dance prop, are sadly enough very common in Cuban Social Dances like Son and Casino. I call it the “Cuban Sickness” because many Cuban Leads are experts when it comes to stealing the dance from the Follow.

Follow-Centric dancing

Instead the Lead should step-down and make the Follow the focus of the dance. The price for being the Lead, for being responsible for all the things that can be derived from the role of being the Lead, is that the Lead must create a Follow-Centric dance. The Lead’s job is to show the world not how good he dances himself but to. demonstrate how good he is at making the Follow dance his dance with him: How much can he unlock the Follow’s full potential.

A Lead should never use shines, add-on styling, Musicality, etc, except in response to what he can make the Follow do. Everything the Lead does must be matched by the Follow or the Lead hijack’s the dance for himself. The Lead can only do double turns if he can make the Follow also do double turns or something equally demanding.

The proof of the Lead’s qualifications as a Lead, the proof that he has lived up to his responsibilities, is that the Follow gets the biggest applause after the dance, and that the Lead’s applause is mostly for his ability to make the Follow dance not for any stunts, gimmick or even wonderful “Musicality” details he might have done on the dance floor.