I've been dancing with Jolie; she is a fierce dancer. She can look so relaxed and disinterested one minute and be full of expression and movement in the next. I am ceaselessly amazed at how much emotion she conveys with the slightest movement.
I’ve been trying to pinpoint the difference between the Guinea dance, which I miss and crave so much, and the Congolese, which occasionally satisfies my soul. The Congolese is sensual and more grounded, I realize. It is lower and stays on the floor. There is not as much jumping or springing into life, celebrating freedom and movement by bounding skyward. Not so in the jungle.
It makes sense in the context of environment. But even more so, it makes sense in the context of beliefs. Because all traditional dance tells a story of culture and belief.
We were dancing one afternoon, working on technique. Wednesdays lend themselves to focusing on the very minute details of the dance. It is just her and I. I try, unsuccessfully, to explain that I want to dance. It is what I’ve come to recognize as my hunger for djembe dance, something familiar that I can give my spirit to, allowing the music to guide my steps. Jolie insists, and rightfully so, that it is important to learn the technique. There are many dancers that can go fast- and she pantomimes an ugly but intricate dance- but when you know the dance well, even if it is only one, then you can give it your spirit.
We were dancing one afternoon, working on technique. Wednesdays lend themselves to focusing on the very minute details of the dance. It is just her and I. I try, unsuccessfully, to explain that I want to dance. It is what I’ve come to recognize as my hunger for djembe dance, something familiar that I can give my spirit to, allowing the music to guide my steps. Jolie insists, and rightfully so, that it is important to learn the technique. There are many dancers that can go fast- and she pantomimes an ugly but intricate dance- but when you know the dance well, even if it is only one, then you can give it your spirit.
She ran through a series of motions, deceivingly simple, calling out the name of a country each was attributed too. Ethiopia, South Africa, Ivory Coast. Each movement evoked images of entire tribes and their different ethnicities. A gifted dancer to project such force in mere seconds. So I am following her in this series of steps that require a rotating pelvic and thrusting thorax-“thorax,” she says as I feel her hand on my middle back, pushing me farther just when I thought I was accomplishing something.
Again. And as we begin she bends the knees, bringing the body down. “Comme zombie,” she says without the slightest bit of humor. It is her reference point. She’s right, and I am enlightened.
Because, never once, in all my years of West African dancing (not too many to be sure, but completed with a careful ear) have I heard an analogy like this. In Guinea, we are dancing in rice fields, working the earth, or even on a hunt, mimicking the Europeans with their rifles and horse whips. There are many images used in the dance, including spirits of the forests - spirits with life, not the undead. But something about the zombie dance sent me reeling in a whole new direction, eyes wide open. Sensual is not the right word for this dancing, though it becomes so. The movement is all over, requires every muscle in the body to pulse.
When paired with the drum it is intoxicating, as much as any African dancing is when accompanied by such rhythm. Something about the drum or the drummer moves the dance between a competition for quickness and agility and a cooperation of timing and choreography.
For now I can be caught up in the call of the drum, the study of technique, all the things that will help me grow as a dancer. But I’m not sure if Congo can keep me grounded. I don’t want to dance like the dead, I want to celebrate with spirit and life.
Because, never once, in all my years of West African dancing (not too many to be sure, but completed with a careful ear) have I heard an analogy like this. In Guinea, we are dancing in rice fields, working the earth, or even on a hunt, mimicking the Europeans with their rifles and horse whips. There are many images used in the dance, including spirits of the forests - spirits with life, not the undead. But something about the zombie dance sent me reeling in a whole new direction, eyes wide open. Sensual is not the right word for this dancing, though it becomes so. The movement is all over, requires every muscle in the body to pulse.
When paired with the drum it is intoxicating, as much as any African dancing is when accompanied by such rhythm. Something about the drum or the drummer moves the dance between a competition for quickness and agility and a cooperation of timing and choreography.
For now I can be caught up in the call of the drum, the study of technique, all the things that will help me grow as a dancer. But I’m not sure if Congo can keep me grounded. I don’t want to dance like the dead, I want to celebrate with spirit and life.
