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“Stand up straight,” Faust commands, her tone even but obviously unimpressed.
Yi Sang simply complies with nary a complaint, rolling his shoulders back and feeling the muscles tense with unfamiliarity. Proper posture didn’t necessarily equate comfort if one’s preferred posture was more of a slouch. Faust sighs and tilts his chin up with her finger.
“Keep your head up and face me.” She pulls her left hand back, returning to its position on his right shoulder. Her right hand rests in his left, with her fingers curled around the back of his hand. Yi Sang’s right hand curls around Faust’s shoulder blade, the fabric of her turtleneck soft against his skin. “We follow the rhythm of one, two, three. Are you following?”
Yi Sang says nothing, simply nodding his head. It should be easy enough, her slightly to the right of him so that their knees don’t touch one another’s, so that he doesn’t trip over her feet and collapse to the ground. One step forward, and then another, a step back, and then another. It should be simple.
“Very well,” She looks him in the eyes, “Let’s begin. One, two—”
Almost immediately, Yi Sang stumbles, and is met with a frown. “Sorry.”
“Try again. One, two—” This time, she watches his feet, and his gaze follows. She pauses, and then says, “No, you aren’t doing it correctly. ‘One’ is the first step forward with your left foot. ‘Two’ is the movement of your right foot meeting your left, and then the full step forward, parallel to the left. With that step, your weight shifts, and your left foot slides to meet the right, ‘three’. Try again.
“One.”
A step forward.
“Two.”
He glides his right foot across the ground, landing parallel to the other.
“Three.”
His weight shifts; he slides his left foot to meet the right.
“And now, ‘one’, step back with your right foot. ‘Two’, draw your left back to meet it, and step back parallel. ‘Three’, your weight shifts—”
“To my left foot, and my right glides to meet it.” Yi Sang finishes, and Faust nods her head. With the affirmation received, he continues, “Very well… one,”
A step back.
“Two,” Her voice says.
He draws his left foot back to meet his right.
“Three.” He finishes.
His weight shifts, and his right foot moves to meet the left.
“Just like that,” Faust says, “When your feet come together, you shift your weight. If you don’t, you’ll misstep with the same foot over again and stumble. You must keep your eyes on your partner and not learn the poor habit of keeping your gaze at your feet. With just the basic steps, there is no difference between a waltz and the rumba. Like this,”
Although he leads, she directs. One, two, three. As she takes her opposite steps—when he takes a step forward with his left, she takes a step backward with her right—she lowers her body just so, and with the one, two, three, she rises again, one, two, three, lowers, rises, lowers, rises. Her coat flutters behind her with her movement, and her hips sway as her knees bend and straighten.
“Do you see the difference?”
“Yes,” he replies, after a momentary pause. “Although I believe I prefer the waltz.”
“I agree. Let’s continue.” They move in time with one another, and neither break eye contact. “What we’re doing is the box step. If you’re having trouble envisioning your steps, simply imagine a box, or trace out a box on the floor with tape or the like. When starting to practice, your steps should remain within that box, feet always confined within.”
“I see.”
“And when you’ve grown accustomed to that box,” With the hand on his shoulder, Faust slightly guides him forward, out of the imaginary box they’ve been restricted to. “You can make your way around the floor, keeping in time with the beat. With one and two, take a slight turn to the right. We maintain the consistency of the steps and timing, but aren’t trapped within such a small area of movement.”
Yi Sang stumbles slightly at this, his ankles almost clicking together, but he regains his footing and continues their rhythm without missing a beat, despite his misstep. “I prefer how it was prior.”
She looks at him, searching his anodyne expression. “Why?”
One, two, three. He pulls them back into that box—or rather, he pulls himself back, and Faust, connected to him by way of their held hands and bodies close together, posture picturesque, unbelievably, follows; the inevitable magnetism of dance. “...there’s a level of comfort,” he says.
“You would prefer that restriction? For what reason?”
Yi Sang tilts his head, impassive. “For what reason do you reject it?”
“...I can’t fathom why you’d question rejecting a restriction, nor do I find comfort in constriction.” Despite this, she keeps in their confinement. One, two, three, her footsteps heavy, audible against the floor. One, two, three, his are light, inaudible, free in their box. “I find it unfulfilling, bordering on maddening. I would grow tired of simply repeating the same steps in an endless loop and going nowhere; succumbing to the supposed satisfaction of routine would drive me to the edge.”
Faust’s ‘one’, her step back with her right foot, goes further than Yi Sang’s ‘one’, his step forward with his left foot; it lands on the edge of the box, tipping over, the contents spilling out of their confines.
Her eyebrows furrow and her eyes darken; in an instant their positions are reversed. She’s the one taking steps forwards, following their rhythm of one, two, three; Yi Sang follows her lead as he’s guided out of the box, heart so distantly hammering in his chest at the unfamiliarity as they make their way in circles around the room.
The mirror in the centre of the room reflects them and their movements, elegant but with a certain kind of ferocity lurking underneath the confines of their rhythm. Yi Sang, momentarily, breaks their seemingly perpetual eye contact to glance at their forms in the mirror; he sees that intensity, he carefully views their mutual movements through an unopinionated lens. In the mirror, they mirror each other, their one, two, three, the steps forwards and the steps backwards. He returns his gaze to Faust.
Hands still held together, backs still straight, gazes meeting once more; their movements are free, but their steps are forever restricted to that box.