<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><font size="2">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.</font>
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<div><font size="2">Jaime<br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Madiba's swing and
sway</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">An old Irish blessing goes: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><i>You gotta dance like there's nobody watching.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><i>You gotta love like you'll never be hurt.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><i>You gotta sing like there's nobody listening.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><i>And you gotta live life like it's Heaven on Earth.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Celebrating the completed life of Nelson Mandela is an
affirmation of the vigor of his living rather than sorrow over his demise. People in South Africa gather outside his
home to sing all day and dance all night, with nary a tear unless with delight! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">As a 10-day wake for the hero is observed, noticeable videos
of Mandela swinging, fists clasped and elbows crooked to the sway, are
played. I never took Mandela in motion
seriously as an act of personal choice as well as a blessed part of his
genetics. Now it gives me pause. I went to school in the U. S. southwest where
portrayed was Uncle Tom's shuffle in vaudevillian caricature. The stereotype was and is pejorative: Afro-Americans
do not walk; they shuffle in deference to the superiority of the whitest!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">In the Blue Mountains of Jamaica in the 80s, I noticed folks
did not quite walk the same way I did; they sauntered to an internal beat with
the fingers snapping like those in the alleyways of Chicago's Uptown where I
once hanged out. "We don't walk, we
dance," Bob Marley's followers intoned.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">It was not until I made it to Ijede by Lagos Lagoon in
Nigeria that I understood the dance beats and formations. We were singing Zambia's <i>Tiyende pmodzi ndi mtima umo </i>(let us live together in harmony) song
when African colleagues started moving all parts of their bodies, with angular
bending of arms, legs and torso, moving the shoulder and the hip, with
stamping, scuffing and hopping steps.
While there is asymmetrical use of the body, there is fluid movement on
all parts. A West African colleague
blurted: "We dance when the Spirit moves". It moved a lot!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">I watched Anthony Quinn's rendition of Kazantzakis' <i>Zorba the Greek</i> in the movie version. This was at a time when Protestants were reclaiming
their emotive tradition of the Lord of the Dance. Zorba was my quintessential male dancer. Dancing on the other side of a disaster was
not foreign to me. The Pinoy's <i>tinikling</i> chronicles two birds caught in
a bamboo grove in the middle of fierce wind and turbulent storm, and their only
option to keep out of danger is to dance!
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The West African dance bends the body slightly toward the
earth, flattening the feet against it in a wide, solid stance in contrast to
the European ballet's upright posture; even Zorba's arms are lifted upward with
a lilt on the feet raised up tiptoes.
Pinoy's <i>tinikling </i>also does
the same; the toes dip into and in-between the clashing bamboo poles. In contrast, the slightly bent body and bowed
head of the African dance is unmistakably earthbound! The planet Earth is home!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">While there are solo performances in circle dances, it is
always supported by the communal spirit of hand clapping, shouting, and
singing. Patterns established by traditions
are permitted individual creativity. Fresh interpretations of familiar gestures are
allowed. Individual moves are
encouraged. Madiba's swing is at once an
existential expression of his being and that of his social context. I call it social democracy, a long way from
the Afrikaners' apartheid!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Those familiar with jazz know improvisation and
polyrhythms. It comes from the sub-Saharan
African dance where several beats are simultaneously drummed. The hip swings to a beat, while the shoulder lifts
to another, and the knees bend and the feet stamp to others. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">I visited West Africa in the 80s where anthropologically the
drum is said to have become the leading instrument in guiding dance moves. Enslaved in America, the African body rhythm
created a broad range of percussion instruments, even as the gestures of hand
clapping, foot tapping, and flesh patting were sources of percussive
sounds. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">In the shadows of the Africa's rainforest and savannahs, the
drumbeat was the mode of communications as smoke signals were used in the open
prairies of the Americas. Dance
movements came to imitate animal behavior like the slithering of the snake and
the elephant walk. The Spirit swirls one
step and a hop at a time - forward, backward, and sideways. Humanity was born to dance!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Copernicus and
Galileo pointed their instruments to the sky; Newton lounging under a tree noticed
force in the falling of an apple. It is
this earthbound quality of our time that makes Madiba not just a man of the
ages but a contemporary wayfarer in the chaotic dance of our secular-scientific-urban
era. Indeed, the signs of the prophets
are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, as they are in Soweto (<b><i>So</i></b>uth
<b><i>We</i></b>stern
<b><i>To</i></b>wnships)
and the rest of the living settlements of South Africa, the backdrop of a
journey taken by one named Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela of the Madiba clan of
Xhoza.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">The last time
the 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 Mandela
is strictly earthbound. He danced life in
the Bantu earthiness of his ancestry, with compassion and grace. It will serve us well to be likewise.</span></div>
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<div style="clear:both">Jaime Vergara<br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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