Dancin' fool
Tonight we went out and danced with the street dancers. It rocked! (Okay, actually it was a leetle bit more mellow than that. But we had fun nonetheless.) Actually, Yauh Neih has been dancing fairly regularly since her students dragged us out to the circle. After a couple nights, one woman (she introduced herself as Cindy) took Yau Neih under her wing and took her to the innermost circle. "Watch teacher!" she exclaimed in her limited English. I should explain the way this dancing thing works. The road that leads to the college, Shiji Lu, dead ends there. At the nearest intersection, whomever organizes the dances sets up a cart with a CD player and a PA system. They run a power cord over to the nearby ant restaurant. The dancers dance in a circle around the music, with one or more dance leaders dancing in the center. There are usually enough dancers to form three concentric circles. Sometimes a fourth circle forms, but since the "dance floor" is limited to the width of the road, it usually doesn't last very long. There's also a splinter group that forms a few lines a bit outside the circle and does a variation of the main dance.Anyway, last night we danced for over an hour and a half. It wasn't too strenuous, save for one dance in which we had to turn ourselves around while skipping. We started out in the outer circle, but sometimes drifted into the second. After about a half hour, Cindy saw her and we were dragged into the inner circle. But even there we drifted into the second. It was very interesting. When I had watched the dancers earlier, I was impressed by how uniform everybody looked. It seemed like the experienced folks were in the middle while the neophytes stuck to the outer edges. Once I got in the mix, however, and was watching people more closely, I noticed that there was quite a bit of variation between dancers. Even the dance leaders sometimes were out of sync. Of course, that didn't let me off the hook. Cindy was on my left (or behind me, as the circle moves counterclockwise) and was trying to show me how to dance. Sometimes she would smack me one to get my attention. (Actually, there are a lot of times when I need an attention-getting smack.)
Getting the full dance experience has only increased my experience. We've asked a couple of people about the whole event, but haven't gotten straight answers. Some students said it was an activity for "retired people" even though there are plainly folks of all ages. One person told us that the dances were from the Wa ethnic minority. However, Yau Neih has recognized a couple of Chinese folk songs on the play list. Of course, when we did folk dancing in the States, they didn't limit themselves to American folk dances. Anyway, I'll have to get the language to ask some questions of the people who actually dance. Or maybe hire a translator. And if we get good enough at it, maybe we can start our own circle in Seattle. I already know of a dead end street....
posted by John @ 7:40 PM
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