Fads, Fashion and Foolery for 1994

PASS THE SALSA: The Latin dance-to-know for 1994 comes not from the steamy Caribbean or pulsating Brazil but from tradition-bound Mexico.

La quebradita --literally, the little breach--has swept down from the border states into the night clubs of the capital.

A cross between the lambada and the Mexican polka, the dance is a precarious combination of fast-paced and suggestive. Partners lock themselves in an embrace resembling a death grip while their intertwined legs move swiftly to a salsa-fied oom-pah beat.

Like the tango, la quebradita springs from humble origins: It first appeared here in bars such as El Pacifico, where soldiers and minor drug dealers from northeastern Mexico mix with wide-eyed urban secretaries, and a Saturday night is hardly complete without a stabbing or at least a brandished pistol.

By this holiday season, la quebradita had infiltrated the most respectable corporate seasonal dinner-dances--although it should be noted that many carefully coifed clerks and office managers, who had gracefully segued from mambo to cumbia throughout the evening, watched the prancing movements with puzzlement.