DCDanceBlog

Matthew Hawkins, British choreographer

john sent me this video of folks in some central american country doing punta, a dance that is apparently ”the contemporary offshoot of an ancestral rhythm and dance of the Garifuna people of Central America, performed during celebrations or festive occasions, with links to West Africa and an ancient rhythm called Bunda, or “buttocks” in the Mandé language.” basically some serious booty shaking.

it’s not the best quality video (mostly because the guys in the picture keep getting in the way of the very hot women who are shaking their buttocks!) but it’s still pretty great. i just love seeing these very modern looking women doing a dance that’s as old as the hills, and yet still relevant.

it makes me miss social dancing in this country in general. it’s such a shame that we don’t have any tradition, at least at this point, of dancing together–whether fast or slow, touching or not. going out dancing on 18th street is great, for example, but among white guys of european descent it isn’t comfortable and thus isn’t an option.

i was thinking about speed dating, and how in the past the same results were achieved by people going out dancing, having a 5 minute dance with someone new. it’d be a chance to talk, but also to glide and be physical together in an enticing, but innocent, way. i’ve never had that, but i miss it.

Representational dance???    : )

On top is the lid to the sarcophagus (tomb) of Pacal, the great Mayan king of Palenque.  When it was first discovered during the fifties, a bunch of theories sprouted up about it depicting a space craft lifting off.  Now, with better understanding of Mayan glyphs, historians assume

“the lid to King Pacal’s sarcophagus depicts his mystical journey from this life. He is shown at the moment of death descending beneath the heavens, falling past the World Tree and into the jaws of the “Sun Monster”, which will take him to the ancestral Otherworld.”

At any rate, I was looking at dance pics on the web, and the Parson Dance photo below immediately reminded me of Pacal’s sarcophagus. 

i just finished a great book. it’s art and fear, by david bayles and ted orland, from 1993. i picked it up while browing at a used bookstore, and it is a little gem–clean and clear and full of insights about what it means to make art.

ultimately, what it’s saying is that making art is hard for everyone, not just for you–not just for the lonely individual who keeps second guessing herself and worrying that she doesn’t have anything unique to say, but for even established artists. the authors say that making art is always a risk, and even if you’ve been successful in the past, there’s no guarantee things will go well in the future. the only difference between successful and unsuccessful artists, they say, is that the successful ones have figured out how to push through and conquer their fears enough to try to make something.

the book is well written and doesn’t waste words, so there are lots of good quotes. here’s a couple on the pitfalls and the solution, respectively:

If making art gives substance to your sense of self, the corresponding fear is that you’re not up to the task–that you can’t do it, or can’t do it well, or can’t do it again; or that you’re not a real artist, or not a good artist, or have no talent, or have nothing to say.

put simply, your work is your guide: a complete, comprehensive, limitless reference book on your work. there is no other such book, and it is yours alone.

essentially, they say, the way to learn to make art is to make art. to just do it, and push past expectations, and find what interests you, what is uniquely yours, and delve in.

i love it. somehow that lesson has proved very helpful to me–there is no magic, no divine inspiration to wait for.