Gotta dance

I love to dance.

When I think of dancing as a child, four distinct memories come to mind: Doing the foxtrot on top of my grandfather’s shiny black shoes in our living room; dancing with my aunt at my grandparents’ house, while she sang along to her old 78 records (complete with interpretive hand motions); dancing in the dark by myself on our back patio in Michigan to the music of a wild, warm wind that whipped my nightgown and foreshadowed a coming storm; and three generations of my family dancing with my friends (and their parents) on the tiny beach pavilion on Lake Michigan while our record player played the Four Tops Live.

My dad loves to dance, and whenever a band strikes up, he’s out on the dance floor. I follow in his footsteps, so to speak. When I hear a great dance song, I can’t sit still. In my car, I’ll bounce, tap my foot, and pound the steering wheel. If I’m out, and musicians are playing something I want to dance to, it drives me nuts to sit still (I’m too self-conscious to go out on a dance floor by myself unless it’s crowded.). For all his wonderful attributes, the guy I date isn’t a dancer. But that doesn’t keep me from dancing around the house. When I’m cleaning, I’ve begun to put on a CD or turn on the radio. When a good song comes on, I’ll stop and dance a few steps before shimmying my way by the bookcase, dust rag in hand. Rather than being my usual, grumpy cleaning-mood self, dancing literally puts a spring in my step.

When I think of African dancing, if I think of it at all, I don’t think of northern Africa, which I consider more Middle Eastern than African, or South Africa. I think of the rest as a generic Africa, a homogenous blend of countries in constant turmoil. When I imagine African dance, I see rhythmic, usually war-like movement stereotyped in movies.

Until I read some of this unit’s articles, I didn’t realize that coastal African dance incorporated undulating motions reminiscent of the sea. Or that Ghanan dancers held their bodies rigid and used gestures. I didn’t know that the language of African dance had different “dialects” or that dance was such an integral part of life, not a separate art form as it is in the West.

In “African Dance: Bridges to Humanity,” Tracy Snipe said that we need prior knowledge of a culture to understand the language of dance. I think she’s right. Whereas I can watch dancers in American musicals or stage performances and thoroughly enjoy their reflection of our heritage and the stories they tell, if I see Japanese dance, the stylized movements are culturally foreign to me. I neither appreciate nor understand what they are trying to convey. With the readings this week, I feel African dance is a little more familiar. It still may need some interpretation, but I’ll see more than I did. In fact, I envy the unconscious way that dance is such a big part of everyday life. Maybe I’ll have to create my own “coming home from work” dance to start my evenings off right!