La Cocina, El Patio, La Calle, La Sala

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The places where Dominican life happens —

where music plays, and where we learn most naturally

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From Studios to Santo Domingo​​

 

For years I bounced around New York studios, picking up moves here and there. The pattern was always the same: beginner classes were too basic, intermediate meant another routine, and every class ended with a video. I stopped recording after a while, because I knew I’d never watch them.

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That’s when it hit me — I wasn’t actually getting better. I was collecting moves, but I couldn’t relate them to the music. If a choreo didn’t match the song I was hearing, what good was it?

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Eventually I found a fundamentals course that helped reset my base. Soon after, that same teacher announced a training in the Dominican Republic. A week in a villa outside Santo Domingo. It felt like the natural next step — a chance to push deeper and get closer to the source.

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At the end of that training, we all had the same assignment: teach something for five minutes. Most people picked a move. I sat there asking myself: what is it I’d actually want to teach? That’s when I realized — I never really “learned” bachata at all.

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Four Levels, Four Places

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Nobody ever sat me down to explain rhythm. I didn’t learn counts. Bachata was just in my bones — from the womb, from my parents holding me in the kitchen. So I started tracing my own journey back:

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As a baby, it was rhythm in the house — the kitchen radio, my mother pulling me into the music.
As a kid, it was family parties in backyards, basements, parks. Abuelita dragging me up whether I wanted to or not. Nobody cared if I was good. The point was to dance.
As a teenager, it was house parties and clubs — showing off, adding flair, flirting through the music.
As an adult, it became cousins with kids, everyone packed into a living room. The music still playing, but the dancing slower, more intentional.

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At first I called them ages — baby, kid, teenager, adult. Later, when I started writing a syllabus, I swapped ages for places. Because that’s where these moments lived.

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La Cocina. El Patio. La Calle. La Sala.

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Those names captured the rhythm of real life. Not levels on a chart — places where bachata was lived.

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Why It’s Different

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This path isn’t about tricks or polished routines. It’s not about being IG-ready. Bachata has always been playful, carefree, a little messy. You’re supposed to dance with whoever’s in front of you — from abuelita to a beginner stomping too hard to someone flying through footwork. Fuck it. That’s the point.

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At a certain stage, you don’t need more “advanced” moves. You need more music, more partners, more nights on the floor. That’s how rhythm settles into you. That’s how connection gets built.

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For me, the Four Levels are a way of condensing thirty years of living bachata into something I can pass on. A bridge for people who didn’t grow up with it but want to feel it.

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Closing

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Cocina, Patio, Calle, Sala. Four levels, one culture.

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This is how I learned, and this is how I teach — not as steps in a studio, but as stages of life.

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This is what bachata should feel like.

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