Category Archives: Folk Dance

Soul Train Line

Nationality: American
Age: 47
Occupation: Spanish teacher
Residence: Memphis, TN
Performance Date: April 25, 2015
Primary Language: English

The tradition: “At wedding receptions, the guests form 2 lines facing each other, men on one side and women on the other. The 2 at the front of the line dance down the aisle together and go to their sides when they reach the end. Then the next 2 dance all the way down and so on. It’s comes from the 70s and 80s dance show, Soul Train. It’s called the Soul Train Line.”

The informant (my mom) is a black American woman who grew up in Tennessee. Soul Train aired in 1971, and was the first all-black show on national television when it moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. So my mom (and dad) basically grew up watching Soul Train almost everyday after school, learning the dances and watching the various R&B performers through the 70s and 80s, when they were children and teens. The Soul Train line became famous from the TV show, and now it’s a popular practice at African-American weddings; it’s almost a staple. My mom says it happens at basically every black wedding she goes to, in addition to “lots of line dancing: wobble, Cupid Shuffle, 2 stomps…” in her words. Improvisation and line dancing are huge parts of black folk dance in America. The Soul Train line combines both, and emulates the practices done on the show itself. People go down the line in pairs, improvising and feeding off of one another. Every move is choreographed in the moment, feeding off the energy of the crowd. I think the emergence of Soul Train in the 70s was very important for young black children in America, to see their community represented onscreen. It made them excited, and want to imitate the dance practices they saw on TV. That generation (my mom’s generation) is the generation that mostly practices, or starts, these Soul Train lines. I was at my cousin’s wedding last summer, who is in her thirties, and it was the older adults who began chanting to start a Soul Train line. They’re fun and energetic, and a good way to interact with people you may not even know well through dance.

Folk Dance (Bhangra)

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Diamond Bar, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Gujarati
  1. Main Piece: Bhangra Video
  2. Informant Background:
    • What is it: Bhangra is a form of folkdance originating in Punjab (northern India). This form of dance originated as a form of entertainment and fun for Punjabis, who were traditionally farmers. Bhangra often has use of live music, and is danced to with sticks and flags that resemble farm tools used by Punjabis out on their farms.
    • Where did you learn it: I picked it up myself largely, but soon after I joined a Bhangra team here in the Los Angeles area, and began to learn from my pears and my coaches.
    • What does it mean to you: Bhangra has, for quite some time now, stepped into the competitive scene in North America. There are tens of thousands of teams between America and Canada – high school affiliated, temple affiliated, university affiliated, city affiliated, etc. Competitions have been around for decades, and Bhangra has transformed into a competitive sport. I have been the captain of UCLA’s Bhangra team for 2 years, and we have been very successful in the past. I aim to keep up the reputation and continue to bring to the world high quality performances. We aim to hype a crowd with our high energy and creative in choreography, musicality and formations.
  3. Context of Performance
    • There are many different contexts for performance of Bhangra, but the one Vaibhav has focused on is dance competitions.
  4. My Thoughts:
    • I believe that the spread of Bhangra for a competitive purpose helped keep the Punjabi culture alive for people abroad, away from Punjab. However after spreading into the competitive scene, I believe that it began to take on it’s own purpose and it’s own identity, and now there are people like Vaibhav, who is from Gujarat, but identifies much more strongly with Bhangra, the folkdance of Punjab, than he does with Garba, the folkdance of his own region.

SWEET CAROLINE

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Oregon
Performance Date: 4/18/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

ABOUT THE INFORMANT:

My informant is a senior graduating this semester from USC. He is a biomedical engineer, and is the oldest son of two immigrants from China.

EXAMPLE:

Interviewee: Whenever we have parties or go to parties it is basically a requirement that we sing the Neil, what’s his name?, song – “Sweet Caroline.”

Interviewer: Neil Diamond?

Interviewee: Yeah, I think. So we have to sing that song. But it’s not just a song, it’s like everyone sings it in a circle. And then like after the “Sweet Caroline” part in the chorus, we all have to say “Ba, ba, ba” and throw are fists in the air. It matches like the horns.

And then for the “good times never felt so good,” we all yell “So good, so good, so good,” with the same fist bumping.

Interviewer: Is that it?

Interviewee: Well that’s like the basics. But then for those in the know when he says “reaching out,” you gotta reach out to the rest of the group. “Touching me,” you put your hand on you. “Touching you,” touch someone else next to you.

And then if you really know it, the “warm touching warm” part you rub your hands together like they are cold.

BACKGROUND

“This started because, at least I think it started because of him, but one of our friends is from Boston. And he is like really into Boston. And he’s a Red Sox fan. And I guess the Red Sox fans do this during baseball games at Fenway Park. It’s like their anthem. So he gets really into it during the singing. But really it’s become just like a big group thing. Singing it with everyone. It pretty much will just stop the party.”

ANALYSIS:

This song/dance has is an example of folklore traveling from location to location, event to event. What started as Neil Diamond writing a song for Caroline Kennedy has somehow gotten turned into a theme song for the Red Sox, which has then been used as a party song at USC. Probably for the person that came from Boston, who is “really into Boston,” used it as a way to show the people at USC his culture, but now the song has a whole USC culture to it. Especially at the point where it is practically guaranteed for any parties that this group of people throw or go to. It has now turned into a form of identity for this friend group at USC. Which is funny because it is derived from a form of identity for Red Sox fans and Bostonians.

“Sweet Caroline” can be heard in the film Fever Pitch about an obsessed Red Sox fan, and this is an article in The Boston Globe all about how this writer hates the tradition to sing it at the games.

 

DANCE PARTIES

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

Informant: What about dance parties?

Interviewer: What about dance parties?

Informant: We used to have them, as a kid. When I was younger. Would they count as folklore?

Interviewer: What do you mean?

Informant: Well it was like this thing. Like whenever it was late and it was bedtime, but we couldn’t go to sleep, we would have dance parties.

Interviewer: Who?

Informant: Well it would be like when we had been staying up talking to my mom, and then she would tell us to go to bed. But we weren’t tired. So she would throw a mini-dance party for my brothers and me.

Interviewer: Was there a specific song you would listen to?

Informant: Yeah! What was it? I know it. If you heard it, you would know it. (After Googling something) “Moondance” by Van Morrison. My aunt gave her like a mix CD from her high school reunion and that was on it. We would always listen to that song.

Interviewer: And dance?

Informant: Yeah. Until we got tired, then we would crash out and go to sleep.

ANALYSIS:

I feel like every parent must have a trick to get their kids to go to sleep, and this one sounds like a fun one that will easily tire the kids out. Kids, generally speaking, do not like to miss out on time with the adults and do not feel like they are missing out, so it makes sense that this informant’s mother would initiate the dance parties often when the informant and her siblings were up talking to the mother. When she said it was time to go to sleep, they probably groaned. So she made a game out of it.

I like the addition that it was one particular song, “Moondance”. That to me made it a ritual. That when they heard the words dance party, they knew exactly what music would played. It is also interesting that the music was passed along by another family member. That does not necessarily mean anything, but it is very folkloric to have all the elements passed down or along by other people. Her mother did not pick “Moondance” arbitrarily, it was on a CD her sister gave her. That just feels more special for the entire process and dance party.

BATE

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

“So this is something that we actually took from “Dora the Explorer” in my house. There is an episode, where, I think we were watching because it was when my brothers were younger and they would watch it. And my mom would watch with us. So we were watching one day, and I think they were making chocolate. Dora and her grandmother.

And so they sang the chocolate song.

‘Bate, bate, chocolatè

Mix that cho-co-late, chocolatè

Bate, bate, chocolatè!’

So we heard that, and I think maybe my mom had heard it before. Like I think it is a thing Mexican culture, I don’t know though. Because I remember once telling someone about it who was Mexican and he knew a version of it. But that was the first time me and my brothers heard it.

But anyways, so in the show they sang it to make chocolate. Like stir it together, or something. But for us, after that, my mom would rub our bellies when we had a stomach ache and sing it to us. She would like rub it in a circle, and after we would feel better.

So then when I would get stomach aches after I went to college, I would have my boyfriend, who is white, sing the song to me and rub my stomach. Which of course he then was mad and wanted me to do the same to him when he got stomach aches. So now whenever we’re piggies and eat too much, we rub eachother’s stomachs and sing the song. “Can you bate me?” It’s pretty gross.”

ANALYSIS:

This is like a mix of folk music and folk medicine. There seems to be some Hispanic heritage or pride peeking its way into this tradition. Since Dora the Explorer is Hispanic, and she believes her mom may have known this song prior, it does feel grounded in the Hispanic culture.

It is also folk medicine in that she uses it specifically for relieving stomach aches, not for mixing chocolate like Dora does. A stomach ache is such a weird thing to cure; there are definitely some over the counter cures, but it does not surprise me that people would think of different ways to cure it. I like that she has now passed it down to her significant other. The song has taken on a whole new meaning than it was most likely originally intended for.

It is funny that this seems to be a pretty traditional song, a Google search comes with a bunch of variants (see below) that was repurposed for Dora the Explorer. It was also kind of gringo-fied, which is to say many of the other versions were more based in Spanish, but Dora seems to strip that out and replace it with English. It is an interesting, but somewhat predictable choice.

I found this other version of the “Bate” song here.