Author: Leanne Zabala
Shoulders shimmied, bodies rolled, hips swayed, and ladies spun. For the last week of Spirituality in the Arts Month, the Office for Religious and Spiritual Life (ORSL) hosted an evening dance workshop last Tuesday in the dance studio on Afro-Caribbean dances.
ORSL Programming assistant Emily Sanderson (junior) contacted Kimberly Miguel-Mullen, the dance instructor for Oxy’s Afro-Caribbean dance class, to do the workshop.
“I took her class last spring and I was interested in doing an event that involved dance and spirituality,” Sanderson said.Though the event was open to all Oxy students, only females showed up to dance. This may have been a good thing since the dances we learned were not only feminine, but also pretty sensual.
As the girls gathered in a circle, Miguel-Mullen kicked off the workshop with a bit of history about dances in Trinidad and Tobago and a brief review of the dances she was going to teach.
Fortunately for me, there were a variety of participants with different levels of dance experience. Some had relatively little, and while others had been students of her class since freshman year.
“In my first semester of freshman year, I wanted to take a hip hop class, but Oxy didn’t offer any at the time. So I joined Kimberly’s Afro-Caribbean class and have been in it ever since,” Catherine Petru (senior) said. “This style of dance is very organic and natural to the way the body moves.”
“I’m enrolled in Kimberly’s Afro-Caribbean class, and I love it so much that I stayed for the workshop,” Anna DeNeui (sophomore) said.
These statements hit the mark for me. The atmosphere in the room was very relaxed, yet lively and energetic as we practiced knee kicks, low crouches, and circular running. Because the dances were based on ritualistic traditions, most of the time we danced in a large circle to the beat of bata drums. The bata drum, originally from Nigeria, is now used for Santeria ceremonies in Cuba.
Pounding a rapid and changing beat, the trio of percussionists set the rhythm for our bodies. The first dance we learned was called “Yemaya,” named after the Oricha deity of sweet water, beauty, love and femininity. Fortunately, this dance is supposed to only feature female dancers.
The second dance Miguel-Mullen taught was more playful. We danced to the cajone, conga drums, and a solo singer. Usually a dance for couples, the rumba represents a flirtatious, sexual game. The dance features a distinctive body movement called vacunao (pelvic thrust) performed by the male dancer.Remnants of guaguancó, a sub-genre of Cuban rumba, are evident in the hip and pelvic motions of modern salsa dancers.
“In the rumba, the male dancer is more active, circling around the female without touching her. Throughout the dance, the male tries to give the vacunao when the female is unprepared to avoid it. Trust me, in Trinidad, they are quick! But the female enjoys the game and entices the male while avoiding being touched by his vacunao,” Miguel-Mullen said.
Although no males decided to show (too bad for them), we learned the dance anyway and felt invigorated by the exercise.
As Sanderson had hoped, the workshop was a great way for students to explore different forms of artistic expression, to learn about a different culture’s spirituality, and for people to enjoy a good dance class.
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