From The Belly of a Traveler

“When you are dancing with your partner,

for that two and a half minutes

you are in love with each other.

You're corresponding with each other

by the moves that you make.

It's a love affair,

between you and your partner and the music.

You feel the music, you feel your partner,

she feels you and she feels the music.

So there the three of you are together.

You've got a triangle, you know.

Which one do you love best?”

- Frankie Manning (attributed to inventing the Lindy-hop)

I'm making a little stop in Lima, Peru. I've been invited to rest my head in one location for almost an entire month while I mentor the ATS® scene.

The experience I'm having in Lima is very unique, the ATS® community here consists of three lovely ladies seen above: from left to right: Patty Zeballos Koc, me, Shakti Prema Ananda, Taka Carnes (a traveling raks sharki dancer ), and Andrea Lucar.

This is the smallest community I've meet yet.

Not unlike other communities the ATS® here is very young, and the dancers have a strong thirst for knowledge and the desire to execute it properly.

They have shared their stories of what and where they've learned their ATS® and sadly are full of a lot of confusion and misinformation. So currently we are working together to dispel the untruths and polish the moves for the future.

Unlike other communities there seems to be little or no interest from the rest of the tribal world here, which is fine but unusual. 

  

On a personal note it's so refreshing for me to spend a good chunk of time with such an intimate group of dancers, classes become really intense and full of personal feed back. As a teacher I thrive on pushing my students, trying to figure out what they need to hear as individuales to have that "ah-ha" moment. I'm getting plenty of time to do that now.

Another thing I'm enjoying is the building of friendship. We are all a connected dance family, but transitioning into friends is such a lovely thing. I was sad to feel like I raced through my last three spots. There was never enough time to just bask in the presence of my friends, to build our intimacy.

Here I am able to do that as well, late night chats and funny excursions through town, plus time for me to be quite and calm.

Peru is a large country, filled with heart breaking landscapes and tiny colonial towns (at least in the north).

I can't wait to explore more.