In the documentary,
African Dance: Sand,
Drum, and Shostakovich,
choreographer Zab Maboungou, says that she always has to "negotiate the
space" when she dances, implying that it is naive of us to think that
there are many places on this earth that do not carry some echoes of our
past, culture and heritage. She negotiates the space in order to give
this past a present meaning.
In the
film, Maboungou is quoted thus, "It is never just there, just like that
for me. It is a space that is inhabited; it is a space that is alive and
I have to negotiate. I`m not just coming in to fill it up. There are
things already there."
"Vladimir Tarasov had to visit China. China which
is the center of a most ancient civilization and
which holds the richest culture ever. This country
attracts everyone; its magnetic force is known to
everyone. Especially to those who never forget about
their predecessor's experience. Especially to those
who never break the generation circuit which goes
from past into future but lock it. Especially to
those, who combine archaic and avant-garde trends,
traditions and novice, respect of a disciple and
impudence of an artist..." [click the link for more]
"Noting that this site has no prior reviews on
Chinese classical music, I feel very much obliged to
provide uninitiated readers a very brief
introduction to the genre. This is both an
unenviable and difficult task for Chinese music has
an extremely long and complex history......"[click the link for more]
A famous Canadian,
break dancing, dancefloor master, called Buddha
recalls how he was able to connect with local Turks
on a holiday with his girlfriend..."[click the link for more]
"This is a question
that is most commonly asked by Break Dancers and
Gymnasts. You go about reading tons of articles on
how to flare and do windmills and crap and in the
back of your head you are saying to yourself, "Yep!
Uh Huh! I can do that, I think I know what he is
saying." Then you reach the part of the article that
says don't worry about building up muscle or kicking
too hard because momentum will keep you in the air
and it will take most of the stress off your arms,
Then you are like "What the hell is this guy
smoking? Okay, I would love for this to be true but
what the hell is momentum? Is it some little fairy
that comes along and holds my ass off the ground
while I am flaring? .."
[click the link for more]
"I would like to submit you a more concise history
of westcoast street dancing. I myself was dancing
over 22yrs ,my age is 33. I started pop-locking in
San Francisco, FRESNO ,LosAngeles area.& in Chicago
an in New ORLEANS..."[click the link for more]
... The malandragem is designed on a paradox; it makes the
truth, at once, illusive yet inevitable. It can be
interpreted as negative and positive, but is, by itself,
neutral. Everything is a potential lie and truth.
For example: He said this but he meant that. She had
me go one way, so I would eventually go in another.
Those who wish to find Capoeira’s true nature, whether in
the roda or by definition, should expect the very process to
involve the malandragem. [click the link for more]
One of Capoeira’s strongest traits is its devotion
to its lineage and its mestres (teachers).
There is an ideal in Capoeira that there is
one mestre above all the others for every
Capoeirista (Capoeira player) and that our lessons
are made shallow and fragmented when we don’t know
how to stay with our teachers.
Capoeirista or not, we have all had teachers.
As well, most of us have had to choose at one time
or another when to go with somebody or when to go it
alone. When we make those decisions,
does our ‘lineage’ follow through in those actions?
Does our ‘training’, or lack of, show?
And of all our teachers, can any of us trust
one mestre above all others to guide us through our
lives, like our own conscience? If we’re going to be romantic about it, what about
the idea that this wise sage is cultivated from
within?
In feudal Japan, "ronin" was
the name given to masterless samurai, those who had no leader to serve.
[click the link for more]
the Great Divide
Male or female? Democrat
or Republican? Paper or plastic? Chocolate or Vanilla? Cup or cone?
Manual or automatic? Angola or Regional? The division between the
two styles of Capoeira seems to be one of those great dichotomies.
Unfortunately, each camp holds a lot of misconceptions about the
other. I don't claim to be an expert, but as someone who doesn't
fall completely on either side of the fence, I have a few
observations and opinions to share.
"The etymology of the word
capoeira is disputed by some scholars. Some
Brazilian writers claim it is from the Amerindian
Tupi language group and means an area of bush that
has been cleared by burning or cutting down. In
Portuguese, the language of Brazil, it also means a
big chicken coop or a place where birds are
fattened. Kongo scholar K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau
thinks that capoeira is really a deformation of the
kikongo word Kipura/kipula. According to Fu-Kiau
"Both pura and pula means to flutter, to flit from
place to place; to struggle, to fight, to flog. Both
terms are used to describe rooster's movements in a
fight: their back and forth, up and down as well as
turning around moves. Kipura, in the kongo cultural
context, is...an individual whose techniques of
fight or struggle are based or developed on the
ground of rooster fighting techniques..." [click the
link for more]
"Black gospel music grew out
of the late 19th and early 20th century folk church and is
essentially created in a context of individual and
collective spontaneity. As a total manifestation, black
gospel can be viewed as a synthesis of West African and
Afro-American music, dance, poetry, oratory and drama. An
urban contemporary black religious and musical statement of
rural folk origins, it is a celebration of the Christian
experience of salvation and hope. According to gospel singer
and historian Pearl Williams Jones, it is at the same time,
"a declaration of black selfhood which is expressed through
the very personal medium of music." ..."
"What is Hip Hop today?Something floating between Will Smith – Bling Bling – and
bang, bang, you dead?Where does
MasiaOne’s
new CD, named after an Ontario suburb, Mississauga, fit into
this equation?"[click the link for more]
"On November 23rd,
2003, the Stylordz held their first Hip Hop Congress in a
private, downtown Hamilton (a.k.a. Steel City, Canada) location.The congress marked a cap in the history of this
organization and is truly an example of how Hip Hop has
developed since its pioneering days – this rebellious art form
and urban storytelling turned industry, philosophy and science."
[click
the link for more]
"Everyone in Hip Hop owes
a bit of gratitude to Hip Hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa and his Universal
Zulu Nation. Here's a guy who came out of New York's ruthless gang
culture and succeeded in creating something positive when there was so
much negativity around. He took former gang members put them under one
umbrella initially called the Organization and later Zulu Nation."
s hip-hop dead? It sure sounds like it if you turn on the
radio. What used to be exciting, groundbreaking music seems to have been
reduced to a one-note din. The only topics discussed are bling-bling
materialism, how many guns you have, and "ho's." Hip-hop poster boy 50
Cent appears on the cover of Rolling Stone
with the caption "Mastering
The Art of Violence." There's the raunchy
Lil' Kim, and of
course, top dog and now Oscar-winner Eminem, who has threatened
to kill his wife numerous times on his records". [click the link for more]
Sometimes music feels like it hits you in the
face. That’s how I felt watching the
First Seed, a.k.a. Adam Gabourie. I’ve never
had an S&M relationship, but the
First Seed delivered a taste of what
it might feel like on the receiving end.
Self described as “breakcore” or “speedcore”
beats, his particular form of musical expression
can also be characterized as bloody violent
technical meltdown.
This music is “a reflection of society at this
state in time,” Gabourie told me. [click the
link for more]
"It's been
ten years since the first identifiably house tracks were put
on to vinyl, ten years which have changed the technology
behind the electronic music revolution beyond recognition
but left the basic structure of house intact. It's seven
years since it was being said house couldn't last..." [click
the link for more]
a great history lesson and commentary on the 12" record by
Jahsonic.com
"The modern vinyl record was launched in 1948
and is a direct descendent of the gramophone
record. This new media has several advantages
over the shellac 78RPM original gramophone
record. The 12" LP record rotates at 331/3 RPM
and has tight "microgrooves" allowing 25 minutes
of playing time per side. The vinyl material
also is quieter than the 78RPM shellac improving
greatly the signal-to-noise ratio...." [click
the link for more]
"On May 1, an exhibition on the history of lynching opened at
the National Park Service's Martin Luther King Jr. National
Historical Site in Atlanta. At its frightening center is
"Without Sanctuary"-photographs taken at lynchings from the
1880s through the 1940s. It will be in Atlanta through the rest
of the year..."[click the link for more]
The passion of the
salsa dancer is unparalleled; rich, overflowing,
mad -- and quickly becoming one of the most
organized & professional street dances in the
world. This is the kind of dance that is both
internalized and externalized. Salsa is nothing
without a least a little wow factor, but
salsa is also nothing if you can’t just lose
yourself in the music and dance like nobody’s
watching.
The Salsa Congresses
and professional dance companies continue to
raise the bar in terms of technical skill,
creativity and that wow factor. At the
same time, salsa began and continues to simmer
its own subtle variations in style and
personalities in the night-clubs. The
average salsero or salsera can go
to any major city in the world and find a salsa
club or community adding to this dance’s
international appeal.
In this article, we
ask the question: how does social dancing
compare to performance, for the student looking
to tap into the unique passion of salsa?[Click
the link for more]
SALSA ARTICLESby "Doc Salsa", Steve Shaw, SalsaNewYork.com Website c/o Salsa Picante Dance Company
DON'T GIVE UP!
Learning to dance takes time and work for most of us, and it
includes some evenings when you feel you'll never improve
and when almost no one will dance with you. But if you keep
learning, by taking classes or privates, drilling the
fundamentals and practicing, and getting out there social
dancing, you will most likely master the dance and come to
enjoy the results of all that work: the joy of dancing well
and being able to dance with many different partners. [click the link to read more]
"From the number of messages I've received asking
for a “history of salsa” and “salsa dance history”,
it became obvious that the two previous sections -
'History: Influences' and 'History: Danzon and On'
were not enough." [click the link for more]
Presented here is a series of seven articles,
tracing the early history of merengue as a
pan-Caribbean genre, the importance of the Dominican
Republic as the main locus for its development, and
its transnationalisation because of the Diaspora. It
concludes with a personal perspective of merengue in
this country, the United Kingdom." [click the link
for more]
Salsa
was born in the 1960s and early 1970s, and embodied the moment's
affirmative and sanguine spirit. It depicted creative Latinos
confronting their social situation and literally dancing their way
through adversity.
"What
is the clave? Both as instrument and as rhythmic pattern, the Cuban
clave is perhaps one of the most significant developments to impact
the music of the Western hemisphere..."
"The influence of
Hispanic music on American culture is seen everywhere today. The
impact, however, did not happen overnight. Since the early days of
Arizona, Hispanic musicians have been a strong presence on airwaves,
in dance halls and during celebrations. Most of this music is modeled
after what is seen and heard in Mexico and Latin America, but new
musical styles unique to the Mexican-American culture have evolved in
the Southwest United States."
"The student in Middle
Eastern dance (also known as Raks Sharqi and infamously as the
bellydance) faces many physical and emotional challenges. Taming the
body and mind to layer and twist itself, with precision and grace, to
the heavily percussive music from the Middle East makes this study as
profound and mysterious as its history.
Spanning
back to the beginning of our civilization, this history wants and can be
told a million and one ways. This is a story that grows with each
dancer’s victories and failures over the body and spirit. While
the mind learns to control the body, the mind learns to release
inhibitions and insecurities." [click the link for more]
,
head of
Arabesque Academy
and Dance Company, told me that she
believes that the future of women’s mysticism lies in
bellydancing. From my own experiences with this
dance, I was ready to believe her. Bellydancing
not only refreshes every single muscle in the body but
also a curiosity for feminine nature and power." [click
the link for more]
"If you look around Melbourne
today, the belly dance scene is booming. An unprecedented number of
schools have opened, we now have both a shop and a resource group
operating, a number of troupes perform. Workshops, school
performances, individual performances in festivals, boosted by
exposure on high profile TV shows such as "Healthy, Wealthy &
Wise" have made Melbourne a vibrant and exciting place to
participate in Middle-Eastern dance".
[click the link for more]
"Danse
du Ventre, Raks Sharqi and the Bellydance are names given to an ancient
art form that has been so severely persecuted and repressed for the last
2000 years; it is a wonder the dance exists at all.It does indeed exist and right now is making an extraordinary
impact on women all over the world ..." [click the link for more]
"Every few years there
is a resurgence of interest in what is widely known as danse du ventre,
or less elegantly, belly dancing. More properly called danse orientale,
this dance - by whatever name it may be known - has inevitably
elicited an exaggerated response from those not accustomed to the
social background to which it belongs. In the past a climate of
disapproval has hampered any attempt at serious evaluation of this
dance; at the present time the situation has reversed to a point where
the enthusiasm of its protagonists has become the chief hindrance to
any objective assessment. A dance whose enduring charm has managed to
survive not only a body of disparaging commentary but the spurious and
tawdry aura surrounding so many of its practitioners does seem
deserving of a fresh appraisal."
[click the link for more]
By Peter H. Wood, associate professor of American history at Duke
University in Durham, North Carolina
"In the five centuries since Caribbean
residents received Columbus, North America's newcomers have come from
all over the world. Our foreign ancestors arrived at different times
and under diverse circumstances, from Europe, Africa, South America,
and Asia. And all of our remote or recent immigrant forebears, whether
they disembarked as enslaved, indentured, or free persons, have
undergone what Shakespeare called a "sea change" in the
transition -- individual and collective -- from one world to
another...."[click
the link for more]
"Toronto’s
dance scene is erupting as local companies show a stronger
international presence than ever before. One of the greatest sources
of creative energy is the collision of many cultural dance forms in
this city of immigrants, creating both variety and exchange.
Torontonians also love the written word, and cross-fertilization
b
