Suzy Q (In and Out)

The Suzy Q is a foundational salsa shine — a solo footwork pattern danced during the open breaks, when partners briefly release each other, rather than a led figure. Its signature is a quiet, twisting action: the dancer pivots on the balls of both feet and lets the heels swing out and back, scissoring the legs to carry the body sideways. Like much of the shine vocabulary, the step predates salsa itself, descending from a 1930s novelty social-dance figure that passed through the Big Apple and Lindy Hop before being absorbed into the salsa shine catalogue.^[1] That unusual lineage has earned the move its own small body of dance-history writing, which traces where the step came from and the debated question of who the "Suzy Q" of the name actually was.^[2]

Execution. Keep the torso square and still and the feet close together, then swivel on the balls of both feet so the heels swing out and in, changing weight from one foot to the other; the legs cross and uncross in a scissor-like twist that travels the body sideways while the upper body stays quiet.^[3] The "in and out" framing applies that same heel-swivel to carry the body toward a center point and then back away from it, reading as a controlled in-and-out shuffle rather than a fixed-spot twist.

Timing and variations. The figure is taught with multiple variations spanning both On1 and On2 phrasings, the swivels landing on the weight-changing beats of each measure.^[4] In Cuban Casino it survives in the same form — an open footwork shine danced away from the partner — and keeps the same name.^[5]

Naming. Across English-language linear scenes — Los Angeles On1 and New York On2 alike — the figure is catalogued under a standardized shine name: the swing-era "Suzy Q" (also spelled "Suzie Q" or "Susy Q"), carried over intact into salsa's shine glossaries.^[6] One caution follows from that label: "In and Out" is also the English name of the Copa, an entirely different led partner figure named after the Copacabana nightclub in New York. Despite the shared name, the Copa and the Suzy Q are not the same move and should not be conflated.^[7]