Injection!
April Caddell
Rumba time, again! Only this time we are learning exactly how to do it. Today, we are having our dance class with the well-known professor of Dance, Jose Del Pilar Suarez. Jose is very particular; he likes slow Rumba which he thinks is more complex, graceful and expressive. In his talk to us, we learned that Rumba in the city tends to be faster and Rumba in the countryside tends to be slower. So, he’s a country Rumba dancer (living in the city)! We learned a lot of basic moves, including the different ways to try to “inject” our partners – high kick towards the person, elbow thrust, and (my personal favorite) a very obvious pelvic thrust toward the partner. We also learned the different ways to symbolically cover "or protect" ourselves from “being injected". Usually, it is the woman who covers and the man who injects. Although the dance seems very gender normative, Jose’ shared that he has worked with lesbians and same sex dance couples.
I really enjoyed our time dancing Rumba as a class; however, I know that I was more open to doing the moves, “covering myself” and working to not be "injected" because I was dancing with my classmates who I had gotten to know very well, and who I am comfortable with. I doubt I would be as comfortable dancing the Rumba in public. I was very shy the day we did it at Sabado de la Rumba, although the pictures Nell has of me may not speak to how shy I was. I didn’t really know what Rumba was about until I made it to the dance floor. By then, it was too late to back out. The comfort the people in Cuba feel about dancing the Rumba, with its narrative, is not what I would expect in the United States. In Cuba, however, you could almost say everybody dances the Rumba, and quite comfortably -- different races, classes, and ages dance the Rumba freely. Perhaps, with time and more trips to Cuba, I will get more comfortable with dancing the rumba myself.
I was most inspired by our dance teacher, Jose who is 97. Rumba dancing must keep you very young looking. To us, Jose looked no older than a man in his sixties who is nonetheless very physically fit. Like a lot of people in Cuba, Jose wears white most of the time. If only to age as well as he has, I might make Rumba part of my workout routine. I was also very amazed to learn that he had worked with Harry Belafonte, one of my favorite people in the world. Belafonte impresses me not just for his singing and dancing, but also his activist work which goes back to the time when Martin Luther King was still alive.
April Caddell
Rumba time, again! Only this time we are learning exactly how to do it. Today, we are having our dance class with the well-known professor of Dance, Jose Del Pilar Suarez. Jose is very particular; he likes slow Rumba which he thinks is more complex, graceful and expressive. In his talk to us, we learned that Rumba in the city tends to be faster and Rumba in the countryside tends to be slower. So, he’s a country Rumba dancer (living in the city)! We learned a lot of basic moves, including the different ways to try to “inject” our partners – high kick towards the person, elbow thrust, and (my personal favorite) a very obvious pelvic thrust toward the partner. We also learned the different ways to symbolically cover "or protect" ourselves from “being injected". Usually, it is the woman who covers and the man who injects. Although the dance seems very gender normative, Jose’ shared that he has worked with lesbians and same sex dance couples.
I really enjoyed our time dancing Rumba as a class; however, I know that I was more open to doing the moves, “covering myself” and working to not be "injected" because I was dancing with my classmates who I had gotten to know very well, and who I am comfortable with. I doubt I would be as comfortable dancing the Rumba in public. I was very shy the day we did it at Sabado de la Rumba, although the pictures Nell has of me may not speak to how shy I was. I didn’t really know what Rumba was about until I made it to the dance floor. By then, it was too late to back out. The comfort the people in Cuba feel about dancing the Rumba, with its narrative, is not what I would expect in the United States. In Cuba, however, you could almost say everybody dances the Rumba, and quite comfortably -- different races, classes, and ages dance the Rumba freely. Perhaps, with time and more trips to Cuba, I will get more comfortable with dancing the rumba myself.
I was most inspired by our dance teacher, Jose who is 97. Rumba dancing must keep you very young looking. To us, Jose looked no older than a man in his sixties who is nonetheless very physically fit. Like a lot of people in Cuba, Jose wears white most of the time. If only to age as well as he has, I might make Rumba part of my workout routine. I was also very amazed to learn that he had worked with Harry Belafonte, one of my favorite people in the world. Belafonte impresses me not just for his singing and dancing, but also his activist work which goes back to the time when Martin Luther King was still alive.