Seven hours of dance
I <3 contradance. It's fun, it's easy to pick up, it's a partner dance, and it necessitates making a fool of yourself, all of which are happy (and resemble capoeira!); and oh my God, so good for flirting. I actually got to say "save the last dance for me"! As unhappy as I've been for the past couple of weeks, contra made things just a little bit better.
1000 Went to breakfast with barefoot_stream and sikonawt at this place called Java Joe's which is next to Wawa and has good food. They had this enormous orange-slaughtering machine with a bin and a metal feeder tube through which oranges plummeted into its hellish center, wherein they were rendered as juice. The juice tasted OK but had green things floating in it, and I was scared. Our food took forever because (according to sikonawt) they had to milk the beavers. I'm not gonna tell you "don't ask," because whenever anyone tells me that I really want to ask, but, um … yeah, beaver milk.
1500-1700 Two hours of practice for Modern Repertory. You'd think that dance majors wouldn't have a lot of homework. Sometimes, if you're early on in your studies, this is true, because you're taking intro classes. What they do have is rehearsals that multiply like rabbits. Do not study dance in an attempt to expand your free time. That said, our piece is finally complete: we only have to polish it henceforth. I'm not going to spoil the entire piece for you, but it involves cosmetic surgery, a hospital gurney, the ending credits song from Metroid Prime, Mr Potato Head, and Joanna suspended, still dancing, five meters off the ground from two bolts of cloth. It will be cool. We go up Thursday 20 April at 1630hrs and Friday 21 April at 2000 hrs. If you are my friend, you will come. No excuses. (Okay, maybe a couple.)
1700-1900 Canguru and Sininho show up to teach us capoeira. I was kicked in the head and it was a good time. We drilled kicks and balance on the walk in front of Parrish, with me hiding behind Canguru every time an elderly person walked by ("Shit! They're going to get me! Ever since I started capoeira, I've developed an irrational fear of old people …"). We formed the roda outside Sharples (the dining hall, for non-Swatties reading). We drew a good crowd: I saw scibilia there, and deathbysnusnu and ricerurouni passed by once or twice. Mad respect to anyone who stayed to watch. Despite the small size it was a really fun roda: my feet were still hurting from three hours of contradance the previous night, but it had been too long since I'd let myself go that way. The light was dying straight and clear as we whirled in and around each other; I could feel myself moving through the beams, almost as if they were solid, breaking through them and feeling them reform behind my feet and hands and head. I sang my favorite songs, such as this one:
Não estudei para ser padre
Tampouco pra ser doutor
Aprendi a capoeira (ô iaia)
Pra bateu no Inspetor, camará!
I didn't study to be a priest
Nor to be a doctor
I learned capoeira (oh, iaia [slavemaster's daughter])
To beat up the Police Inspector, my friend!
As we were playing, Joanna (of the aforementioned modern performance), who's been out of capoeira all term with a knee injury, vaulted into the roda and played remarkably well for someone who hasn't practiced since last year. I'd tormented her all term by saying that I'd come up with a Nasty Capoeira Nickname™ for her, but refused to share it unless she actually came to capoeira. She played with Sininho and Nick and then, overcome with nostalgia, I cut in and played with her. For some reason, even though we've been dancing together all term, it felt like I hadn't spoken to her since last year. We ended the practice with a spectacular, acrobatic game with Canguru and Sininho playing, and me on berimbau.
LULA
So, Joanna. You're "Malabarista" now.
JOANNA
What's that mean?
LULA
Canguru! What's "Malabarista"?
CANGURU
Hm? Oh, that's the guy who … He attempts to balance his berimbau on one hand, but it falls over. He picks up a caxixi and dobrão and attempts to throw them from hand to hand, but that doesn't work either.
LULA (laughing)
"Juggler." It means "juggler."
JOANNA [with a slow smile]
… yeah, that works. I like that.
Best day of capoeira in a while; the beautiful weather, with the roda ending with the light, didn't hurt at all.
1900-2030 They wouldn't let me into Art (sorry, sainsha!), so I saw the Tamagawa University Taiko performance instead. Sharon Friedler, the chair of the Swarthmore Dance Department, had told me last week in her characteristically scary voice, "Lula, you need to go to the taiko performance on Sunday night, especially considering its relevance to what you're doing this summer." At this point I was thinking, Wait, I'm learning ninjutsu and taiji this summer. What does that have to do with- Then she said, "Uh-I mean-not that it's, well, related, but it's … um, you should go." I'm trying to figure out whether there's a non-sketchy way to interpret that.
I'd never thought of taiko drumming as an opportunity for comedy, but they managed to combine music and humor and acrobatics in their pieces, which were interspersed with folkdance and kabuki performance. I was impressed by the level of precise control that the Japanese folkdancers exhibited. The routines were very careful and precise (like ninjas, Professor Friedler?). All the dance was clearly very difficult, but mostly I was struck by how much fun the drummers and dancers seemed to be having; although honestly, there are very few other appropriate responses to running around dressed as a horse and somersaulting over a taiko drum. My arms are tired now just from watching.
On my way out, a random little kid was pointing at my pants and saying something to his father. I gave them a quizzical look, and his father explained that the little boy was a capoeira player as well. I asked the kid who his teacher was, and he said, "Uh … his name's Martin."
"Martin … oh, is he 'Lobo Mau'?"
"Yeah!"
"I've met him. He's a cool guy."
Lobo Mau ("Big Bad Wolf") is an American capoeirista from Canguru's group. He teaches a lot of younger capoeiristas. I met him at UPenn last year: he was really nice. I like the way that capoeira makes the world inexplicably smaller: if I weren't running to Tarble, I could have invited the kid to play then and there, and it would have been really fun. I feel sometimes like I'm a character in Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, in which the few main characters adventure across Japan, mysteriously crossing paths with one another and one another's friends and enemies, leaping suddenly and happily into friendly combat with people I've never met before and ending the battle as friends. How many people will I pass on the street who are, unbeknownst to me, waiting for me to ask them to dance?
1000 Went to breakfast with barefoot_stream and sikonawt at this place called Java Joe's which is next to Wawa and has good food. They had this enormous orange-slaughtering machine with a bin and a metal feeder tube through which oranges plummeted into its hellish center, wherein they were rendered as juice. The juice tasted OK but had green things floating in it, and I was scared. Our food took forever because (according to sikonawt) they had to milk the beavers. I'm not gonna tell you "don't ask," because whenever anyone tells me that I really want to ask, but, um … yeah, beaver milk.
1500-1700 Two hours of practice for Modern Repertory. You'd think that dance majors wouldn't have a lot of homework. Sometimes, if you're early on in your studies, this is true, because you're taking intro classes. What they do have is rehearsals that multiply like rabbits. Do not study dance in an attempt to expand your free time. That said, our piece is finally complete: we only have to polish it henceforth. I'm not going to spoil the entire piece for you, but it involves cosmetic surgery, a hospital gurney, the ending credits song from Metroid Prime, Mr Potato Head, and Joanna suspended, still dancing, five meters off the ground from two bolts of cloth. It will be cool. We go up Thursday 20 April at 1630hrs and Friday 21 April at 2000 hrs. If you are my friend, you will come. No excuses. (Okay, maybe a couple.)
1700-1900 Canguru and Sininho show up to teach us capoeira. I was kicked in the head and it was a good time. We drilled kicks and balance on the walk in front of Parrish, with me hiding behind Canguru every time an elderly person walked by ("Shit! They're going to get me! Ever since I started capoeira, I've developed an irrational fear of old people …"). We formed the roda outside Sharples (the dining hall, for non-Swatties reading). We drew a good crowd: I saw scibilia there, and deathbysnusnu and ricerurouni passed by once or twice. Mad respect to anyone who stayed to watch. Despite the small size it was a really fun roda: my feet were still hurting from three hours of contradance the previous night, but it had been too long since I'd let myself go that way. The light was dying straight and clear as we whirled in and around each other; I could feel myself moving through the beams, almost as if they were solid, breaking through them and feeling them reform behind my feet and hands and head. I sang my favorite songs, such as this one:
Não estudei para ser padre
Tampouco pra ser doutor
Aprendi a capoeira (ô iaia)
Pra bateu no Inspetor, camará!
I didn't study to be a priest
Nor to be a doctor
I learned capoeira (oh, iaia [slavemaster's daughter])
To beat up the Police Inspector, my friend!
As we were playing, Joanna (of the aforementioned modern performance), who's been out of capoeira all term with a knee injury, vaulted into the roda and played remarkably well for someone who hasn't practiced since last year. I'd tormented her all term by saying that I'd come up with a Nasty Capoeira Nickname™ for her, but refused to share it unless she actually came to capoeira. She played with Sininho and Nick and then, overcome with nostalgia, I cut in and played with her. For some reason, even though we've been dancing together all term, it felt like I hadn't spoken to her since last year. We ended the practice with a spectacular, acrobatic game with Canguru and Sininho playing, and me on berimbau.
LULA
So, Joanna. You're "Malabarista" now.
JOANNA
What's that mean?
LULA
Canguru! What's "Malabarista"?
CANGURU
Hm? Oh, that's the guy who … He attempts to balance his berimbau on one hand, but it falls over. He picks up a caxixi and dobrão and attempts to throw them from hand to hand, but that doesn't work either.
LULA (laughing)
"Juggler." It means "juggler."
JOANNA [with a slow smile]
… yeah, that works. I like that.
Best day of capoeira in a while; the beautiful weather, with the roda ending with the light, didn't hurt at all.
1900-2030 They wouldn't let me into Art (sorry, sainsha!), so I saw the Tamagawa University Taiko performance instead. Sharon Friedler, the chair of the Swarthmore Dance Department, had told me last week in her characteristically scary voice, "Lula, you need to go to the taiko performance on Sunday night, especially considering its relevance to what you're doing this summer." At this point I was thinking, Wait, I'm learning ninjutsu and taiji this summer. What does that have to do with- Then she said, "Uh-I mean-not that it's, well, related, but it's … um, you should go." I'm trying to figure out whether there's a non-sketchy way to interpret that.
I'd never thought of taiko drumming as an opportunity for comedy, but they managed to combine music and humor and acrobatics in their pieces, which were interspersed with folkdance and kabuki performance. I was impressed by the level of precise control that the Japanese folkdancers exhibited. The routines were very careful and precise (like ninjas, Professor Friedler?). All the dance was clearly very difficult, but mostly I was struck by how much fun the drummers and dancers seemed to be having; although honestly, there are very few other appropriate responses to running around dressed as a horse and somersaulting over a taiko drum. My arms are tired now just from watching.
On my way out, a random little kid was pointing at my pants and saying something to his father. I gave them a quizzical look, and his father explained that the little boy was a capoeira player as well. I asked the kid who his teacher was, and he said, "Uh … his name's Martin."
"Martin … oh, is he 'Lobo Mau'?"
"Yeah!"
"I've met him. He's a cool guy."
Lobo Mau ("Big Bad Wolf") is an American capoeirista from Canguru's group. He teaches a lot of younger capoeiristas. I met him at UPenn last year: he was really nice. I like the way that capoeira makes the world inexplicably smaller: if I weren't running to Tarble, I could have invited the kid to play then and there, and it would have been really fun. I feel sometimes like I'm a character in Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, in which the few main characters adventure across Japan, mysteriously crossing paths with one another and one another's friends and enemies, leaping suddenly and happily into friendly combat with people I've never met before and ending the battle as friends. How many people will I pass on the street who are, unbeknownst to me, waiting for me to ask them to dance?