-FILE
The late Bogle moves in sync with a woman onstage.
Kesi Asher, Staff Reporter
DANCEHALL MOVES are under investigation, in an effort to link them with traditional forms and then document the findings.
The Excelsior Community College, in association with Dance Xpressionz, is tracing the modern dances back to traditional dance forms such as kumina, dinki mini, gerreh and brukins, among others.
Orville Hall and Patsy Ricketts are the key people in this movement. They plan to document their findings and establish an archive for Jamaican dances. This archive will be instrumental in crediting Jamaica as the origin for the dances, as many countries in the world are now adopting the culture.
MERGING FORMS
Patsy Ricketts, ballet mistress and choreographer of the Stella Maris Dance Ensemble and lecturer at Excelsior Community College, explained that they have been in the process for two to three years. "A lot of people have tried to do it before us, so we are not really the first. We are also trying to merge traditional, contemporary and urban folk dancehall steps together to form one," she explained.
"I always think about it as how to mix lemonade. You do not see the sugar separate from the water, separate from the lime, you have to merge it. It's just the same, you cannot see the individual vocabulary of steps in the movements," said Patsy.
At Excelsior Community College, dance is a part of the syllabus and is taught as a part of the associate degree in the performing arts. Hall and Ricketts work in the performing arts department.
Kenneth Salmon, head of the department, said, "It is a very exciting process. It is important because people need to recognise that this is the root. Older folks do not recognise that the dancehall dances are strongly influenced by the traditional dance form. This is a research that I am strongly supporting."
According to Hall, choreographer and principal dancer of the Stella Maris Dance Ensemble, leader of Dance Xpressionz and assistant lecturer, at Excelsior, traditional music is not readily available in documented form. "The old music is not readily accessible in Jamaica. In 2001, I heard that there were 250 ska bands in Tokyo alone and the dancehall culture is extremely strong in Japan.
"Japan can almost survive on the reggae culture without Jamaica. It will be on the books to show that it was Jamaica that originated reggae music," Hall said.
Mr. Hall believes that Jamaicans do not value what they have, take their culture for granted and leave the market up for grabs. "We tend to give away what we have. A couple years ago, we had a Japanese dancehall queen. A Jamaican cannot go to Japan and become a Japanese dance queen in their culture, so we have to be careful with what we have," he warned.
Dancehall moves are used in the videos of some American hip-hop songs, such as Fat Joe's Lean Back, with no references made to the origin of the dance.
The documentation process will serve more localised purposes, as dances are created weekly. "Within a week, there will be six or seven new dance moves; the dances keep changing. After a while, they will just be passing thoughts, because there are so many and no one is seriously documenting the dance steps," Hall explained. Documentation is also important, as there are cases where one dance step may have two or three names. For example, the dances 'airforce' and 'and one' are supposed to be different, they have similar moves.
PROFESSIONAL PURPOSE
Hall said depending on who started the move, that person will want to claim the dance and name it. Documentation will allow persons to keep track of all the dances that were created, the creators and other names for the same dance.
This movement will also serve a professional purpose and will help the cultural process. When the traditional dance forms are identified, the steps are broken down to be taught in a professional way, using the same dance terminology. "Most dancers do not know how to teach the dances in a way that people who are not dancers can learn. You have to understand what your body is doing so that you can do the move," said Orville.
The tourism sector can benefit, as Salmon said, "It would be an important course for entertainment coordinators to do when they are trying to teach foreigners to dance." In addition, there is a market for these types of lessons and dance teachers can capitalise on the opportunity.
However, not all dancers can be teachers of the art form, as how it is done in the street is different from on the stage and how it should be done in the classroom. "On the stage, it is more amplified," stated Hall.
'Street' dancers are instrumental in the creation of dancehall moves. There are many, such as Bogle, John Hype, Ice, G Unit, Keva, Mad Michelle and Ding Dong, who have created popular dances. Ding Dong from Nannyville, St. Andrew, agrees with the move to connect the old and new dances. "I think is a big step, something real good, because people waan learn the dance, but them don't go dancehall session," said Ding Dong. "Some people tink seh the dancehall too aggressive, so a good ting weh some people can stay inna dem house and learn the dance," he added.
Ding Dong performs at sessions, like Passa Passa and Weddy Weddy and also dances overseas. For him, learning the dances is easy. He said, "The dances easy to learn, because me is a natural dancer."
DANCE CREATOR
Not only does Ding Dong dance, but he also creates. According to Ding Dong, he created the 'badda dance', 'oh my swing', 'chakka chakka', 'santa bounce', 'sunlight', 'swing song', 'part the crowd', 'bad man forward' and 'bad man pull up'.
"Is a natural ting; it jus come to you. A weh me do. A move jus come natural and you build pan it and tings come more advance," answered Ding Dong. As to naming dances, "Tony Matterhon, me name it and bring it to him and him say yeah, or him bring up someting good."
Ding Dong said he too is teaching dancehall moves. He is the host on a dancehall documentary DVD, which teaches the dances step by step. "Dancehall a sell right now. As a baby born dem want learn the latest dance," he said.
