As you all know, dancing has been a big part of my experience here. For good reason.
During lunch today my host Mom and I discussed the various cultural functions, meanings, and etiquette of dancing in Peru and many other Latin American cultures.
At home we tend to see dancing as something talented people do. "White people can't dance" is an idea that has permeated our mindset and crippled many, many light-colored people throughout the last century. The fact is, anyone CAN dance. Just like anyone can walk. Yes, it takes training, and it take time, and it takes practice, but dancing is no longer just for the talented. Dancing here is what you do. If you don't dance, it's like you don't walk. Everyone does it. Yes, some do it more readily than others, some do it more professionally than others, some more seriously, some more vivaciously, some more frequently, and so on. But here it has nothing to do with talent.
Of course, there are professional dancers here. And perhaps they have more "talent" than others, (Ok, let's be real, the professional dancers I've danced with here have a lot more talent, on our scale, than a lot of others...) but people don't view a certain level of talent as either a prerequisite for dancing or an inhibition from dancing. It's quite beautiful!
Dancing is something that's done in clubs, yes, but also in schools, at parties, at home, in the streets, and really anywhere else dancing could be done. It's done with alcohol and without, and I must say it's normally done much better without.
Here a person who might not be considered terribly attractive is given a free pass if they can dance well. And many people who might be considered attractive are passed up readily if they can't (or won't) dance.
This leads to the practice in the clubs of what I'm going to call "circling." On any given night, during the first hour of dancing at a club, you will find several, and sometime quite a few, guys just sitting on the edges watching. Now, at first this made me uncomfortable. I assumed they had just come to watch and that they didn't dance because they couldn't. Wrong. They were watching, waiting, choosing. Many of them rarely dance, some of them are phenomenal dancers and just want to see who will be worth their time. May sound a bit harsh, but it's understandable. Circle the room, pick out the good dancers, wait until the social dancing starts, ask them to dance, see how well you can dance together, if all goes well, ask again. This is how it works.
Now, from the female perspective, we don't get quite as much of a chance to watch. As a foreigner, I can get away with asking a guy to dance, but here, that's really taboo. So I have to wait to either accept or reject. Both are socially normal. If I see a guy I want to dance with, I may need to refuse a few in hopes that he asks. If I accept a dance from someone else before he has the chance, I may just be stuck with the first guy for the rest of the night. I tend to have less problems than others because, well....Let's be blunt here - I am both a foreigner, fairly attractive, and a relatively good dancer. If I accept an offer and find I don't enjoy it, I can walk away. I get a free pass for breaking many social rules because of the 3 affore-mentioned facts. Perks.
I hope now you have a sightly clearer picture of what dancing means here, and how at least one person experiences it. I'd recommend giving it a try if you're ever in the area. (And even if you're not.)
During lunch today my host Mom and I discussed the various cultural functions, meanings, and etiquette of dancing in Peru and many other Latin American cultures.
At home we tend to see dancing as something talented people do. "White people can't dance" is an idea that has permeated our mindset and crippled many, many light-colored people throughout the last century. The fact is, anyone CAN dance. Just like anyone can walk. Yes, it takes training, and it take time, and it takes practice, but dancing is no longer just for the talented. Dancing here is what you do. If you don't dance, it's like you don't walk. Everyone does it. Yes, some do it more readily than others, some do it more professionally than others, some more seriously, some more vivaciously, some more frequently, and so on. But here it has nothing to do with talent.
Of course, there are professional dancers here. And perhaps they have more "talent" than others, (Ok, let's be real, the professional dancers I've danced with here have a lot more talent, on our scale, than a lot of others...) but people don't view a certain level of talent as either a prerequisite for dancing or an inhibition from dancing. It's quite beautiful!
Dancing is something that's done in clubs, yes, but also in schools, at parties, at home, in the streets, and really anywhere else dancing could be done. It's done with alcohol and without, and I must say it's normally done much better without.
Here a person who might not be considered terribly attractive is given a free pass if they can dance well. And many people who might be considered attractive are passed up readily if they can't (or won't) dance.
This leads to the practice in the clubs of what I'm going to call "circling." On any given night, during the first hour of dancing at a club, you will find several, and sometime quite a few, guys just sitting on the edges watching. Now, at first this made me uncomfortable. I assumed they had just come to watch and that they didn't dance because they couldn't. Wrong. They were watching, waiting, choosing. Many of them rarely dance, some of them are phenomenal dancers and just want to see who will be worth their time. May sound a bit harsh, but it's understandable. Circle the room, pick out the good dancers, wait until the social dancing starts, ask them to dance, see how well you can dance together, if all goes well, ask again. This is how it works.
Now, from the female perspective, we don't get quite as much of a chance to watch. As a foreigner, I can get away with asking a guy to dance, but here, that's really taboo. So I have to wait to either accept or reject. Both are socially normal. If I see a guy I want to dance with, I may need to refuse a few in hopes that he asks. If I accept a dance from someone else before he has the chance, I may just be stuck with the first guy for the rest of the night. I tend to have less problems than others because, well....Let's be blunt here - I am both a foreigner, fairly attractive, and a relatively good dancer. If I accept an offer and find I don't enjoy it, I can walk away. I get a free pass for breaking many social rules because of the 3 affore-mentioned facts. Perks.
I hope now you have a sightly clearer picture of what dancing means here, and how at least one person experiences it. I'd recommend giving it a try if you're ever in the area. (And even if you're not.)
No comments:
Post a Comment