Category Archives: Kinesthetic

Body movements

Garba

Nationality: Indian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 24, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Tamil

My informant is a young Indian-American woman who is well-versed in the customs of her culture and frequently participates in these traditions. She told me about Garba, a traditional Indian dance.

Garba is a non-choreographed dance celebration usually performed during the festival of Navratri (based on the Hindi words for nine + nights). Garba is typically performed by North Indians and Gujaratis but is sometimes celebrated by Punjabis.

Garba usually celebrates the Hindu goddess Durga, who is considered to be the main mother of creation. It consists of two circles, one in the center of the other, with an idol inside the inner circle. The inner circle is supposed to represent the womb of the universe, while the circles represent time because the Hindu concept of time is cyclical due to reincarnation. The dancers are always switching dance partners, so they are constantly moving.

The traditional outfit worn during Garba is a chaniya choli: a top that sometimes has a vest or jacket, with a long skirt and a scarf. People come to this celebration dressed up in bright colors and the women wear lots of nice jewelry – essentially people choose to come dressed up and looking their best.

The version of this dance that my informant is familiar with is called Dandiya. In this dance, each dancer wields two wooden sticks roughly 2cm in diameter and 1.5ft in length. Sometimes these sticks are decorated but they are usually plain. Two people act as dance partners and hit each other’s sticks together: first one stick, then the other, then both, then they spin, and then move on to the next person. This is the basic movement, but people tend to improvise in fancier patterns so their partner has to keep up (my informant jokingly told me that this is why North Indians tend to be good dancers). This style of Garba (also known as dandiya-raas) is associated with Krishna. “Raas” means play/dance. This style is supposed to imitate a sword fight.

I am glad that my informant knows so much about the symbolism behind this dance, as it adds so much more depth and beauty to the understanding of this practice. I also find it interesting that there is a rendition that combines the idea of creation and the flow of time with battle.

Romanian Bear Dance

Nationality: Romanian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Riverside, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Romanian

My informant is the daughter of Romanian immigrants. She has spent much of her childhood visiting relatives in Romania, in an area that she describes as “Romanian hick country”.

There is a traditional Romanian dance known simply as the Bear Dance, in which Romanian men dress themselves in real bear skins and dance through the streets of their town. This tradition takes place some time between Christmas and the new year, as a way to ward off evil spirits and welcome in a safe and prosperous new year. Everyone in the town comes out and watches this dance, even though it is the dead of winter and freezing cold. Romanian winters are similar to Russian winters, and these people are not dressed in the heaviest of clothing. My informant speculates that this was most likely a pagan celebration that has over time become “Christianized” as a holiday ritual.

I’m curious as to how these people acquire so many bear skins – I asked my informant and she admitted that she had no idea.

Sumo Wrestling

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: gateway apartments
Performance Date: 4/25/2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

Informant CS is a student at USC who is currently studying physical therapy. He is Japanese, born and raised in Japan, and went to school at an international school in Japan.

What about sumo wrestling, tell me something about that since its a huge part of Japanese culture

CS: “Ok well, Japanese people have been doing sumo wrestling for forever. Probably for like… thousands of years. I learned in high school that a long time ago people would do sumo wrestling to pray for good crop and good weather. And then I think it became super popular and the Emperors loved it so they hosted tournaments and stuff. Since sumo wrestling became so popular, matches were created to raise money for temples and shrines and other government related things, and because of that a sumo wrestling league was created.”

Okay but whats the significance of it or is it just a sport?

CS: “Well, sumo wrestling matches happen on important days of the years, and there are always matches during festivals and stuff. I think sumo wrestling is just a way to show strength and people in Japan really love watching it.”

Thoughts: I always thought sumo wrestling was really interesting because it is a huge sport in Japan but is not seen anywhere else. Of course there are other forms of wrestling around the world, but none exactly like sumo wrestling, where the competitors are huge and wear only a towel. It’s really cool that something like sumo wrestling originated from farming, because neither one has anything to do with the other.

Dance Traditions

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (University of Southern California)
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2, 2017
Primary Language: English

For dance, like, um, when I was with the company, the night before the show, like, we’d always have sleepovers, and we’d always drink three… three strawberry Fantas each, which is really bad for you, ’cause you’re not supposed to drink soda, obviously, the night before, but we did it anyway, it was just like a good luck thing.

 

Thoughts:

This good-luck tradition reverses something that it supposed to be discouraged and taboo and turns it into a ritual for luck. It shows the dancers’ and teenagers’ in general tendency to bend or break rules. Additionally, because my informant is a highly trained and very talented competitive dancer, it could speak to her and her teammates’ confidence that they will be able to perform their best regardless of drinking soda the night before a performance. The context of this tradition within a sleepover works to build a community and bond with the entire team, since they are spending the whole night before a performance (and presumably the entire day of the performance) with each other and participating in the same rule-breaking rituals.

The Running of the Teachers

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire)
Residence: Minnesota, Wisconsin
Performance Date: April 2, 2017
Primary Language: English

(In informant’s description of the tradition, “you” refers to the interviewer. Informant’s actions are in italicized parentheses.)

Well, me and you started the whole “running of the teachers” thing… where, like, right before parent-teacher conferences, we’d just sit outside the Writing Center and watch all the teachers go down to, like, the gym or the cafeteria, wheeling their little spinny chairs down the hall. And, yeah, just every time there were conferences after school, we’d be there, like, yelling words of encouragement to the teachers and, like, making tunnels for them and stuff. And then by the spring conferences junior year, it spread so the teachers knew about it, right? Like, your history teacher came up to us and asked us about it, so that was cool. And then senior year, all the teachers knew about it, like, one of the new English teachers asked us if we were going to do the running of the teachers the day of the fall conferences. Yeah, and then that year we, like, expanded it to also making care packages for some of the English teachers… with, like, tissues and hand sanitizer and candy and personalized water bottles… (laughs) yeah, they really appreciated that. ’Cause before, like junior year, we just, like, stalked one of the teachers to her table and made her signs and stuff… and she was kind of mad, but, no, she laughed. But, yeah, senior year, we, like, made them care packages and we finally got to wheel down one of the teachers in a spinny chair, and that was awesome. And then your, like, AP Euro teacher or something, right, she was really sad that we wouldn’t be there to do running of the teachers this year? Yeah, so I guess we started, like, a thing that spread to all the teachers.

 

Background (from interviewer):

My informant is a good friend from high school, and a fellow “English nerd.” She was very close with many teachers, particularly English teachers and those who ran the Writing Center. She is a talented writer, and is now an English Education major at her university. She and I used to regularly stay after school and work in the Writing Center, which allowed us to bond with many of the teachers and witness (and later take part in) their preparations for parent-teacher conferences.

 

Thoughts:

This tradition indicates my informant’s (and my) bond with our teachers and desire for them to like us. My informant, especially, as an aspiring teacher and fellow “teacher’s pet,” found it important to show her appreciation for her teachers, and liked to form friendships with them. This is evident in the friendliness and care that out tradition showed for our teachers, and in the casual conversations in which they would let us know that they knew (and looked forward to) our tradition.