The Washington area is home to a thriving Latin dance scene driven by the confluence of Latinx cultures here in the DMV and the widespread popularity of dances like salsa, tango, and cha-cha, but there's another dance in town, one that's taken the Latin dance world by storm.

It's called bachata.

We get moving with bachata expert Kat Arias, who loves teaching everyone who wants to learn.

♪ Arias, voice-over: My name is Kat Arias.

I'm the owner and director of the Ferocity Dance Company.

I'm a professional bachata dancer, competitor, and choreographer, and I'm based out of Falls Church, Virginia.

Bachata has 3 steps and a tap, so you would go 1, 2, 3, tap and 5, 6, 7, tap, so you always have this pause in the middle, compared to a dance like salsa that looks like it's in constant motion... ♪ and you can see it danced at nightclubs, you know, pretty much anywhere in the world.

Curry: Originally, "bachata" just meant impromptu party.

Bachata as a music and a dance has its origins in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic.

You're going to hear a guitar, la guira--a cylindrical, metal instrument-- to give it that metallic, raspy sound.

You may hear bongos and, of course, the voice, which gives it its passion.

Curry: A Dominican exodus started in 1961 after the assassination of dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Baker: Dominican migration brings bachata to places like New York.

♪ You begin to hear things like electric guitars and, of course, lyrics in English and Spanish or even Spanglish.

♪ Te regalo una rosa... ♪ Baker, voice-over: By the 1990s, it makes its way into the Latin mainstream music, thanks to artists like Juan Luis Gura and his Grammy-winning album "Bachata Rosa."

Romeo Santos: ¿Donde por "Los Infieles" esta noche?

Baker, voice-over: By the 2000s, Aventura and its frontman Romeo Santos sell out Madison Square Garden.

♪ Tu y yo durmiendo con los enemigos ♪ ♪ Dos seres que jamas hemos querido... ♪ Arias, voice-over: Aventura, they are like the *NSYNC of bachata.

At TSR Tysons, not only is it one of the most famous clubs in the world and it's here in Tysons Corner, but their biggest night is the bachata night.

Man: Guapo.

♪ [Cheering and applause] Arias, voice-over: I am the only dancer in my entire family.

♪ I lived in Venezuela till I was 6, and my dad had come over here to just try to get a better life.

Because it was just very difficult to make ends meet, I never got to take dance classes, but I would watch Michael Jackson videos, and when Britney Spears came out, that's my girl, and I would just learn the choreography.

♪ Baby, thinking of you keeps me up all night ♪ Ubaldo Suarez: ♪ Hoy le compre a mi nina.... ♪ Arias: I really didn't dance until my quinceanera.

Suarez: ♪ No me habia dado cuenta, de lo que ya crecio... ♪ Arias: My mom did not want me to embarrass myself, so she signed me up for waltz, salsa, merengue.

It was on my second lesson that the instructor pulled my mom aside, and he was like, "She can dance.

Like, she could teach dance."

Khriz: ♪ Siendo tu amigo... ♪ Arias, voice-over: Through the culture that I came from, there are just certain things that they tell you you can't do because of your size, and so it was amazing to have this professional dancer tell my mom, "She's special."

Curry, voice-over: Like the music, bachata the dance also evolved In the Dominican Republic, the basic step is the box step-- stepping one, here, here, and here.

What happens in the U.S. is that there's a form that develops-- dance in a horizontal line across those same 8 counts but one direction 4, back 4.

It's a little hard to pin down exactly how this comes to be, but one of the contributing factors is the mega hit from Aventura "Obsesion."

♪ Pero es que en el amor soy muy original... ♪ Baker, voice-over: The music video comes out in 2002.

Not only does it take the airwaves by storm, but there's a scene with couples dancing in that horizontal line.

This form begins its spread.

When we're talking about the early 2000s, that means DVDs principally but also what are called dance congresses.

These are events that can bring in hundreds to thousands of people to take classes with their dance idols and then take that information back with them to their hometown, and, of course, 2005, with YouTube, they record what they learn at these congresses.

They put it online, and then it just spreads like a wildfire so that by 2008, bachata dancing has its own congress, and it moves from becoming a social dance to then presenting them and competing with them.

When I started ballroom dancing, I wanted to compete.

I like the dresses and the shiny rhinestones, but that's what I always saw in the movies.

I was working two jobs already and going to school and this part-time job at the Elan DanceSport Center.

The perk was, you got to take dance classes for free, but I was terrified, so I didn't dance anything for a year, but when I did finally get the courage to do everything, I was doing 19 dances every week.

♪ One of the instructors was coaching a local college team, and they did bachata.

It started with me just helping.

"Can you please help the girls with their arm styling?"

or, "Can you show, like, the guys how to point their toes?"

It went from, like, a couple of minutes every week to, like, a couple of hours every week.

Before I knew it, I was doing zero ballroom and all bachata.

♪ When I started, they were televised on ESPN.

♪ You would see them every Friday and Saturday night at TSR Tysons.

You're sitting there just having a drink and watching these, like, amazing dancers just, like, kill it, and so I was like, "Man, like, one day, I want to do that."

When I finally, like, really decided to go for it, I started the Ferocity Dance Company.

Ferocity is savage fierceness.

That's what I want.

[Crowd cheering] When I put myself on stage, that's the only thing I want to feel, is completely fierce.

♪ Man: Yay!

I had one dancer, so we did duos, and then I had 4 girls that wanted to dance with us, so then we did all-ladies piece, and then a few months later, 3 guys showed up, and they're like, "Well, we want to dance," and then we're like, "OK. We'll do couples pieces now."

2015, I decided, would be the year that we would try to compete.

In 2015, we just went with my amateurs.

Tony Santana: ♪ Morir ♪ ♪ Tu gran amor... ♪ Arias, voice-over: My couple and the team in Mexico got third place.

Our first professional title we won in 2017... Santana: ♪ Me emborrachare... ♪ Arias: and when they announced that we got first, I just completely lost it on stage.

You spend your life being told you can't do things over and over again, and you believe it, as much as you try not to, so to be told that you just won, like, this world championship, I don't think I could get my feelings together at that moment.

Curry, voice-over: Since 2015, the Ferocity Dance Company has received dozens of awards, and Arias teaches everywhere, including at the Kennedy Center.

For any artist, just being able to do anything at the Kennedy Center is just a huge honor, so the minute I got that email, I was like, "Yes," didn't matter what the date was.

I was gonna make it happen.

A social dance is such a powerful way to bring people together... Ball and heel, step, tap.

Ward, voice-over: and that's how we came to Kat and Ferocity.

Forward, back.

Ward, voice-over: It's important to us to bring in Latin dance because that culture is here in the DMV and it is important to us for those communities to feel like they are being seen, heard, and represented by the nation's cultural center.

Open, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

So when we're here, leaders, you must stay straight up so that they understand that it's just a direction change.

I just want her to face somewhere else, but if you do this, then she'll go.

We're not ready yet.

We have to build to that.

It was a little bit tricky at times, but I feel like the teacher was really good at meeting us where we were.

It's learning, it's fun, it's active, and it's always inspiring.

I definitely learned things.

I'm excited to continue to get better.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Keep those feet on the ground.

Arias, voice-over: I hope that they just like bachata at least enough to, like, believe a little bit more that they can do things that maybe they previously thought they couldn't.

I love dancing so much, and I love my students, and I love what I do.

If you're leading, you're leading the entire time.

Arias, voice-over: I don't know how to do anything in life without passion.

If you want to be here, you want to be a part of it.

1 and 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, basic... Arias, voice-over: You can't be afraid to be passionate about it.

Fierce is for everyone.

Whoo!

To find your footing in bachata with Kat Arias, check out classes at all skill levels at ferocitydance.com and try other dances for free through the Kennedy Center's Dance Sanctuaries program at the REACH.

Details are at kennedy-center.org.