Category Archives: Kinesthetic

Body movements

Irish Dance Competitions

Nationality: Irish, German, French, Czechoslovakian
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Siobhan was very active in Irish Dancing from age 5 to age 18. She described a typical dance competition to me.

The two most common kinds of dances are soft shoe, or the reel, and hard shoe. Soft shoe dances are bouncy and fast paced. They use leather shoes, that criss cross at the front. Hard shoe dances like the horn pipe are danced using trebles and clicks. Trebles are when the dancer brushes their foot backwards and forwards and clicks are when the dancer hits their heels together to make a clicking noise.

Siobhan described a couple of narratives that were represented through choreography. A group dance represented the weaving of an Irish cloth. Another dance features boy and girl pairings and centers around Irish women and their sailor husbands who are leaving for sea.

The competitors are judged on technique, energy and stamina. Judges look to see that the soft and hard shoe dances are properly executed, like the “turn out” with feet crossed over and turned in. Dancers must maintain energy, exhibited by high jumping and high kicks. Although the dances are generally short, they take endurance, so stamina is another category to be judged.

The music they dance to is typically live music consisting of accordions, fiddles and keyboards. The music is lively, fluid and constant throughout the competition.

Irish dresses typically have Celtic designs, each with its own unique narrative behind it. However, Siobhan has noticed a trend in competitions recently to stray from the natural and traditional and towards a beauty pageant atmosphere. Girls now have sequined dresses and wigs instead of traditional Celtic designs and natural curly hair.

Local competitions are usually held in ballrooms of hotels, with a stage set up near the front. Regional or national competitions are held in larger hotels with multiple ballrooms or convention centers. World competitions are held in either Ireland or Scotland and occasionally in the US.

Audience members include families of dancers, dance teachers, other students from dance schools of Irish dance and any interested public in the area.

Siobhan noted that Irish dance is not exclusive to ethnically Irish individuals. She has met Asian, African American and South African people at Irish dance competitions. Siobhan noted that the experience fostered a sense of diversity.

Vagina Peeking

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student; Student Worker in USC Housing
Residence: Compton, California
Performance Date: 4/13/2013
Primary Language: English

“You ask someone if they want to see a vagina, and usually the answer is “yes.”  So you ask them to put their palms together and hold their hands out so one hand is on top of the other.  They have to spread their fingers, and then you put your palms together and spread your fingers and put your hands between their fingers.  Then you ask them to open their hands and look inside.  It’s a vagina!”

My informant for this piece of folklore heard this from a friend when she was in middle school.  She felt that a lot of kids in middle school were sharing this with one another and asking if people wanted to see a vagina to the point where it got old.  The age group amongst which this folklore is shared is important because it is around this age that school kids start sex education and grow increasingly curious about their bodies.  For children go around school demonstrating to one another the anatomy of the female sex organ shows that they are getting familiar with their bodies and, in a way, socially educating each other in humorous ways.

Dasavatar (Dance)

Nationality: Indian American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Bengali

“The form of dance I learned, Odissi, is heavily dependent on telling stories through dance and music. One of the final pieces I learned and performed was Dasavatar, which is the story of the ten incarnations of our savior. He comes in the form of a fish, a turtoise, a boar, a half man/half lion hybrid, a dwarf, a killer with an axe, a king, Krishna, Buddha, and a man on a white horse which is yet to come at the end of this era. This story shows the immense power of our God and his ability to change and adapt in the ways we need him. It was easier for me to learn various stories through dancing and acting them rather than hearing them because now they are all experiences I’ll never forget.”

The informant grew up doing this dance along with others, and she still participates in them in college. It’s a way for her to stay connected to her childhood and her heritage in an active way. The dance is also important for her connection to her religion. For her, dancing is much easier to engage with as opposed to reading a religious text or listening to a speech. As the informant says, her participation is very important in the value of every dance. Learning the different parts of the dance also signifies her maturity and mastery because each different part, or incarnation, is difficult to learn and requires a lot of practice.

Sardana (Dance)

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 35
Occupation: Spanish Professor
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

“There’s a dance that’s called Sardana, which is very very different than Flamingo, which is the typical dance people think about when they think about Spain. Um, it is a more, it’s more quiet, and you dance it as a group. So you kind of hold hands and make a circle similar to, I don’t know, maybe with the Greeks Sirtaki where the people are holding hands. Um there is a group leader that counts the steps as you’re dancing and he announces what comes next. There are three basic steps to the dance and you follow the song. It’s played with only three instruments, una grulla, which is a very different flute, a little drum, and then a variation of a flute, so it’s kind of two flutes with a little drum. What I like from that dance is um, no matter how good or bad you are, (of course there’s always professional groups that dance together) but whenever there is a celebration, everyone joins a big circle. So kind of the town gets to do something together at the same time which is also really really nice. And origins come from Middle Ages and have evolved, and again during Franco’s time they were forbidden, but after Franco died I think there has been a renewal of the tradition and a big effort by the Catalan government to get them back to the society. They’re brought into schools and kids are taught how to dance the Sardanas these days.”

This dance is simple, but very important for celebrating and bringing people together. As with the other cultural traditions of Cataluña that the informant mentioned, this one was also influenced by Franco’s strict rules. Despite these restrictions, it is obvious that the dance is valued because they are making such an effort to promote it and teach it to the new generation. Like the Castells, this ritual is a way for people to feel the unity of their town or region, because everyone is joined together. It is a treasured Spanish dance (though not the well known Flamingo), but the informant also relates it to a Greek dance, so she does not necessarily take ownership of it for Spain exclusively.

Hawaiian Greetings

Nationality: Hawaiian, American
Age: 25
Occupation: Volleyball
Residence: Oahu
Performance Date: April 21 2013
Primary Language: English

Traditional Hawaiians would greet people by pressing their foreheads together and breathing through their noses. Breathing through your nose is considered the purest way to take a breath. Riley’s grandpa would greet him and his siblings and cousins with this traditional greeting. He would bend down and place his forehead against each of their foreheads then take one deep breath through his nose and exhale. It was an intimate way of greeting people to show that you cared for the person and respected him or her beyond words.
In addition, kids were to greet elders or other parents who were outside their family as Uncle or Auntie instead of Mr. or Mrs. It was very disrespectful to call someone by the title of Mr. or Mrs. Riley, for example, would walk into a cookie shop and greet the shop owner as Auntie May, even though she had no family relationship to him.
The use of Auntie and Uncle to address elders most likely was used to represent that all Hawaiians are family, despite of what blood you have. It makes sense with Hawaiian culture to treat everyone who lived on the islands as family because the islands collectively represented one giant family.