La Cueca

Me, Auntie Ida's maid Angelica, and her brother Marco, who taught me la cueca.

My souvenir. A handkerchief embroidered with the Chilean national flower.

These are a few of the pictures from a regular lesson. The dance starts with the man and woman facing each other clapping to the music.

When the singing starts the dancing starts. The whole dance is a set pattern, alternating between "vueltas" and "media lunas."

There are four vueltas in each song. Basically, the man and woman dance past each other in a figure eight pattern, switching sides. The music includes a shout of "vuelta!" or a musical cue to indicate when the vueltas should be danced.

There are several patterns for the first vuelta that begins the dance, but after that they are all the same. However, each of the three media lunas has a different type of step, although they can be mixed together once you get the hang of the rhythm.

The thing that threw me off at first was using the handkerchief. Part of the time you wave it above your head, and then during parts of the media luna the girl holds it in front of her face and "flirts." It's harder than you might think.

The whole dance is about the cock (man) catching the hen (woman), so the woman usually waves the handkerchief as a symbol of freedom as she dances away, or possibly as a kind of lure.

Andrea joined in the lessons, but was kind of intimidated so it was a lot of work to get her to dance with me, and she flat out refused to dance with Marco.

"Media luna" means half moon, and what happens is the man and woman come together, then each dance around their half of the circle and meet again on the other side.

The last step was a kind of stomping pattern that it took me forever to get the hang of. It's a kind of weird rhythm.

Marco dressed as a "huaso," the classic Chilean cowboy, for the last lesson.

He also brought a dress for me, although it was a couple sizes too large. It was fun to wear the costume. :)

The first vuelta.

My attempt at flirting with a handkerchief.

And then the running away part.

This is one pose the dance sometimes ends in, although usually the man just holds out his arm for the woman to take.