[Oe List ...] Madiba Wednesday in the Saipan Tribune

[wangzhimu2031 at aol.com]

I am doing Madiba five days these week.  Sending this a copy to the listserv with the usual caveat: if curious, welcome; not, meet you at the bend.


Jaime



Madiba's swing andsway
 
An old Irish blessing goes: 
You gotta dance like there's nobody watching.
You gotta love like you'll never be hurt.
You gotta sing like there's nobody listening.
And you gotta live life like it's Heaven on Earth.
 
Celebrating the completed life of Nelson Mandela is anaffirmation of the vigor of his living rather than sorrow over his demise.  People in South Africa gather outside hishome to sing all day and dance all night, with nary a tear unless with delight!  
 
As a 10-day wake for the hero is observed, noticeable videosof Mandela swinging, fists clasped and elbows crooked to the sway, areplayed.  I never took Mandela in motionseriously as an act of personal choice as well as a blessed part of hisgenetics.  Now it gives me pause.  I went to school in the U. S. southwest whereportrayed was Uncle Tom's shuffle in vaudevillian caricature.  The stereotype was and is pejorative: Afro-Americansdo not walk; they shuffle in deference to the superiority of the whitest!
 
In the Blue Mountains of Jamaica in the 80s, I noticed folksdid not quite walk the same way I did; they sauntered to an internal beat withthe fingers snapping like those in the alleyways of Chicago's Uptown where Ionce hanged out.  "We don't walk, wedance," Bob Marley's followers intoned. 
 
It was not until I made it to Ijede by Lagos Lagoon inNigeria that I understood the dance beats and formations.  We were singing Zambia's Tiyende pmodzi ndi mtima umo (let us live together in harmony) songwhen African colleagues started moving all parts of their bodies, with angularbending of arms, legs and torso, moving the shoulder and the hip, withstamping, scuffing and hopping steps. While there is asymmetrical use of the body, there is fluid movement onall parts.  A West African colleagueblurted: "We dance when the Spirit moves".  It moved a lot!
 
I watched Anthony Quinn's rendition of Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek in the movie version.  This was at a time when Protestants were reclaimingtheir emotive tradition of the Lord of the Dance.  Zorba was my quintessential male dancer.  Dancing on the other side of a disaster wasnot foreign to me.  The Pinoy's tinikling chronicles two birds caught ina bamboo grove in the middle of fierce wind and turbulent storm, and their onlyoption to keep out of danger is to dance! 
 
The West African dance bends the body slightly toward theearth, flattening the feet against it in a wide, solid stance in contrast tothe European ballet's upright posture; even Zorba's arms are lifted upward witha lilt on the feet raised up tiptoes. Pinoy's tinikling also doesthe same; the toes dip into and in-between the clashing bamboo poles.  In contrast, the slightly bent body and bowedhead of the African dance is unmistakably earthbound!  The planet Earth is home!
 
While there are solo performances in circle dances, it isalways supported by the communal spirit of hand clapping, shouting, andsinging.  Patterns established by traditionsare permitted individual creativity.  Fresh interpretations of familiar gestures areallowed.  Individual moves areencouraged.  Madiba's swing is at once anexistential expression of his being and that of his social context.  I call it social democracy, a long way fromthe Afrikaners' apartheid!
 
Those familiar with jazz know improvisation andpolyrhythms.  It comes from the sub-SaharanAfrican dance where several beats are simultaneously drummed.  The hip swings to a beat, while the shoulder liftsto another, and the knees bend and the feet stamp to others.  
 
I visited West Africa in the 80s where anthropologically thedrum is said to have become the leading instrument in guiding dance moves.  Enslaved in America, the African body rhythmcreated a broad range of percussion instruments, even as the gestures of handclapping, foot tapping, and flesh patting were sources of percussivesounds.  
 
In the shadows of the Africa's rainforest and savannahs, thedrumbeat was the mode of communications as smoke signals were used in the openprairies of the Americas.  Dancemovements came to imitate animal behavior like the slithering of the snake andthe elephant walk.  The Spirit swirls onestep and a hop at a time - forward, backward, and sideways.  Humanity was born to dance!
 
Copernicus andGalileo pointed their instruments to the sky; Newton lounging under a tree noticedforce in the falling of an apple.  It isthis earthbound quality of our time that makes Madiba not just a man of theages but a contemporary wayfarer in the chaotic dance of our secular-scientific-urbanera.  Indeed, the signs of the prophetsare written on the subway walls and tenement halls, as they are in Soweto (SouthWesternTownships)and the rest of the living settlements of South Africa, the backdrop of ajourney taken by one named Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela of the Madiba clan ofXhoza.
 
The last timethe world gathered in the magnitude of Madiba's funeral was at JFK's.  Jack Kennedy had us looking at the moon.  Of Irish origins, he fitted the blessing of living heaven on earth.   Now we see beyond the Transvaal that Mandelais strictly earthbound.  He danced life inthe Bantu earthiness of his ancestry, with compassion and grace.  It will serve us well to be likewise.
 
Jaime Vergara
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!


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