Rueda Hand Signs (Part 5) Vacilala

The move “Vacilala” can be translated literally as “to tease her” but it has evolved in a Casino context to mean “show her off” or “check her out”. It is one of the most fundamental moves in Casino which is the base for many other moves such as Vacilense, Pimienta, Sombrero etc.

The original meaning “to tease her” stems from the fact that while the follower turns their back towards the leader there are many suggestive or funny gestures that leaders can do which are usually somewhat cheeky by nature. Some of these have developed to become moves in their own right such as Vacilala con Culo, Vacilala Mentira, etc.

Other gestures that can be done by leaders such as checking out the follower’s behind in a very obvious manner has led to Vacilala often being translated as “to check her out” which is another meaning of the Spanish word vacilar, used particularly in Cuba.

Finally, there are various gestures that can be done during this move which are aimed at creating envy among other dancers where the leader proudly presents their follower to the rest of the dance floor. All of the above mentioned gestures and suggestions are part of Cuban humour and are usually wildly exaggerated, not to be taken seriously in any way. In particular, the last point discussed has given rise to the move being associated with a more colloquial meaning of the word vacilar which is to show off. In this context the move is translated as “to show her off” as the leader will present the follower to the others. This is further emphasised by the fact that Vacilala is one of the few Casino moves where the follower is completely free for a short period of time, not being connected to the leader in any way which allows her to show off any styling she knows which makes this move one of the most beautiful moves to watch for spectators not to mention the fact that the sheer endless amount of gestures by the leader and styling possibilities for the followers can vary this move to the point where experienced dancers can repeat this move multiple times during a dance without any two Vacilalas looking the same.

Out of the various meanings that are attached to this move, it is the meaning of “check her out” that has given this move its hand sign where the caller will point with their index finger to one of their eyes. It is irrelevant which index finger is used to signal the move and which eye the index finger is pointing to. This is in contrast to the hand signal for Exhibela and Sacala which use the same hand sign but are distinguished in terms of which eye they are pointing to (More on this to follow in later posts).

 

To see a video of the move Vacilala as well as the hand sign, please click on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ftZIl5xq8&feature=youtu.be

Casino Pseudospanish (Part 2)

In the last post of this series we discussed a number of factors that puzzle Spanish speakers when they analyse Casino names.

Another factor that distorts the meaning and grammatical structure of these names is that, similar to a “Chinese Whisper”-like process, commands are often misunderstood by dancers particularly in non-Spanish speaking countries. This has often led to the move names being further changed, as Casino students eventually go on teaching the move to others with the name of moves being passed on as they were understood rather than calling them accurately. Since there have been little documentations, standardisations or general guidelines around Casino move naming conventions, it is nearly impossible to say that one move name is “wrong” and another one is “right” even if one of them is more closely related to Spanish grammatical rules.

What is even more curious is the fact that some moves which are not derived from Spanish words to begin with are sometimes changed repeatedly until they are associated with a Spanish word. I.e. many Cuban salsa moves are derived from baseball motions and terms as baseball is among the most popular sports in Cuba. As this sport is American, these terms tend to be English by nature rather than having an equivalent word in Cuban Spanish which can be observed in some of the Casino move names such as “Fly”, “Rolling”, “Baseball”, etc.

Taking the move “Rolling” (aka Suelo which is the name chosen for the Tiempo España Dance Academy syllabus) as an example where dancers clap low on the 1^st beat in Rueda, this move is sometimes called “Roli” in certain Rueda groups as an abbreviated form of the original word. Over time “Roli” has been understood as “Rodi” by various students such that this has become another common name for the same move. Since the word “Rodi” has little resemblance to the original word “Rolling” and actually sounds more Spanish than English the etymology of this neologism is often mistakenly assumed to have originated from the word “rodillas” meaning “knees” in Spanish and signalling the fact that we clap in the area below our knees. Therefore, one of the few English words that were used for a Casino move has effectively evolved to a word that is taken to be derived from a Spanish word as a result of the constant name shortening and changing process that Casino move names undergo.

Furthermore, due to the evolution of Casino move names as discussed above, most aspects of Spanish grammar are no longer applicable in Casino which often means that various versions of the same name are acceptable even if it sounds wrong from a purely Spanish grammatical perspective. I.e. many Spanish speakers question the fact whether the move “Setenta Complicado” should not instead be called “Setenta Complicada” as they insist that the adjective should agree with the noun in terms of gender. However, both forms are acceptable in the salsa community as gender agreement is no longer relevant when naming a Casino move. I.e. Originally this might have been described as “el paso complicado de Setenta” which was shortened to “Setenta Complicado” or it might have been described as “la versión complicada de Setenta”, shortened to “Setenta Complicada”. Similarly, it might have started for instance as “Setenta Complicada” but over time became known as “Setenta Complicado” in some regions simply due to people not hearing the commands accurately. Whatever path was taken, today it is not necessary for Casino move names to agree in terms of number, gender, grammatical case etc.

To avoid confusion, all the adjectives in the Tiempo España Dance Academy syllabus are kept in their masculine form.

While the word order of Casino moves is actually extremely important it does not need to follow the word order of the Spanish language for similar reasons as explained above. Rather, word order with respect to Casino naming conventions has evolved into a structure in its own right where depending on the place of the word an entirely different set of steps are executed. For instance, “Dos Vacilala” in Rueda would instruct the dancer to perform the move Vacilala twice, whereas “Vacilala Dos” would instruct the dancer to perform the specific move “Vacilala Dos” i.e. leading to such epanalepses as “Dos Vacilala Dos” meaning “perform the move Vacilala Dos twice”.

Similarly, “Setenta Complicado Moderno” is the modern version of the move “Setenta Complicado” which is entirely different from the move “Setenta Moderno Complicado” – the complicated version of the move “Setenta Moderno”.