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Folk Dance Federation of California, South, Inc.
DANCING WITH TWO LEFT FEET |
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Recently I came across a delightful book by C.J. Moore, In Other Words, that made me think about our folk dance language. In it the author writes about the difficulty of translating some foreign language expressions. Despite the difficulty, once such expressions are understood they open the door to the culture itself. To illustrate, the Portuguese word Saudada is a kind of intense nostalgia expressed in all the "Fado" songs. The Czech Litost, on the other hand, is a state of torment created by the sight of one's own misery" as defined by the Czech writer Milan Kundera. The Greek Meraki, or Turkish and Slavic Merak succinctly explains something many of us do with soul, creativity, or love – when you put "something of yourself" into what you were doing. Such as dancing?
Our own folk dance language is full of not easily translatable words as well. Take, for example, the word "Yemenite," which literally means someone from Yemen or of Yemeni descent. To us, said in a cadence "Yeh-meh-night" is a familiar dance step. My wife has even adapted it when she gives our folk dance friends directions to our house: "You make a quick 'Yemenite' from Lake Harbor onto our street" (meaning a left-right-left turn). Sometimes she gets quite a blank stare when she directs our non-folk dance friends that way and has to explain what the term means.
What is a Čukče? In a Čukče you lift the heel off the ground before the beat to come down on the heel on the beat. To complicate matters even more, there is a right and a left "Yeh-meh-night" and a right and left Čukče, but having two left feet, who cares?
And I almost forgot, "Bloop-bloop" applied to two steps where the first step, as in Čukče, takes place just before the beat and the second on the beat itself.
I could go on, but enough already. Lets dance!
So, what am I trying to say?
If we want to make ourselves understood by all, we need to explain some of our expressions. Besides understanding the meaning of the expressions, others will get a taste of the feeling and pleasures we get from folk dancing. This may open the wonderful folk dance door to them and invite them to come in and join us.
Printed in Folk Dance Scene, "DANCING WITH TWO LEFT FEET (7), September 2005.