(Bachata) *The why behind every move* — Raquel breaks down her own lady bootcamp choreo

“The song itself asks me to dance from the heart, not from the outside, so I don't care much about how it looks visually.”

Explaining why she focused on emotional expression over visual flash in this choreography

“In those little steps right from the intro, I'm trying to catch every rhythm of the guitar and every change in the notes, and chase it with my footwork and my body.”

Explaining how she reads the music in the intro of the choreography

“It's not just the footwork — the upper body matters too. There's a technical reason for using your feet and giving your upper body freedom at the same time.”

Explaining why the feet and the upper body work together in the intro section

“When you're doing this kind of movement with the torso, keeping your balance is really, really hard.”

Talking about the difficulty of upper-body and torso-driven movement

“The technique I use is the Graham technique — it comes from modern dance. The contraction comes from your organs, from deep inside.”

Explaining the principle behind the 'contraction' movement in the choreography

“Working with contraction and quick release, over and over, builds amazing control and intention in your movement.”

Explaining what the contraction–release training of Graham technique does for you

“Bachata actually has a lot of contracted movements that mark a change of direction — we've just never thought about them that way. So we put a lot of contraction in there.”

CONTEXTExplaining why she brought Graham-technique contraction into the basic bachata step