The snow had turned to crusty ice. The ice had subsequently turned grey in places. Gravel had mixed with salt on the vast areas of open pavement in the parking lot. The gravel and ice crunched underneath my heels. A sickly gray smudge surrounded the bottom of the shoes touching the sole. The clouds had started to melt into darkness. In the west a thin ribbon of pink remained in the horizon. The sunlight remained just as a remnant, a spirit that haunted the sky where once there was a sun which fought to give hope and heat but which had given up the fight and snuck off to hide in defeat beyond the horizon. I opened the back doors of my Sentra, threw some book that were in the back seat over further into the choas of my backseat and grabbed the black case. I walked in to the club, through the doors and witnessed the transformation to the old country. The mountains and valleys caressed my skin as their scents intermingled and filled the dry air.
The furniture is made of baobab trees. The roof is held up by trusses and around these trusses a pair of leopards race around, coming together on their hind legs to shake their paws and hips as if they were matching the beats of unheard drums. They engage in the dance for a while then separate and race around the rafters. They come back together periodically to pair up to dance.
The main act hasn’t started but there is background music playing. A server does a few quick dance steps before the crowd comes in and swings her hips just slightly so seductively as a smile spreads across her face.
The crowds filters in and the main act starts playing. They play ancient melodies on modern instruments and a modern sound system. Later as the night progresses, Uncle Alimayu starts dancing as if he is the main act. In horn-rimmed, thick glasses he scans the crowd, miming a few of the the words and occasionally gesturing towards the crowds and occasionally towards himself.
He is well dressed, in a casual brown suit, the color being somewhere between carmel and coffee. His shoe closet probably has wingtips and derbies but today is wearing Louboutin spectator shoes with black, tan and dark brown sections. Alimayu shaves with a straight razor after lathering with a brush.
Uncle Alimayu is tipsy but not overly drunk. He’s just had a few drinks to help enjoy the night out and to get the party going a little bit. He continues dancing and his steps are confident. The steps are a mix of styles, a fusion of steps from the old country and some more modern steps; His hands and arms a make a come here motion, but it’s not exactly a “come hither” motion. It’s a little bit between “come hither” an “come on let’s get the party started”.
Uncle Alimayu smiles as he remembers that day of his youth when he stood on the ridge looking down at the valley below. He remembers the two wildebeest running at each other and locking horns. They tried to twist each others neck. They stayed locked for a few seconds. Alimayu beat on his drum to signal his presence. He struck the drum a few more times and then started making a rhythm. The wildebeast unlocked horns, rose up on their hind legs and stepped back from each other. The wildebeast started taking turns tapping their feet to the rhythm of Alimayu’s drums. They shook their heads. A washint blew and Alimayu changed his rhythms. The wildebeast started circling while facing each other, their hooves stamping the dry earth with each beat.
So many years had passed since that day and now Uncle Alimayu is at home in this land that once was foreign. His dance is not marking his territory or looking for a mate. Instead, it is the welcoming dance, the welcome to himself and his people. It is the homecoming dance. At the same time it has ancient roots – you are welcome to join but he is the ringleader. It is the dance of the bird in his nest, in its home. His dance is not fancy and can be easy to pick up.
His people are the people of coffee and mountains. They are from a place of famine and war.
Their written language comes from ancient symbols.
In a back room, another scene appears. The first lights of dawn peek through the mist. Palm fronds sway in background. The jungle never really cooled down. Instead, the heat took a break from working so hard. The earth and air held the heat the way a furnace remains warm to the touch after it cycles off. The humidity regroups fro another attack later in the morning. Mist condenses on a palm frond. The dew collects and becomes a drop. The drop travels the length of the palm frond and drops onto a leaf below. A trio of aphids feel the drop and race to where it fell. They lap down the droplet until all the moisture is gone and the leaf is dry again.
The outline of the temple appears behind the mist. The mist makes eddies in the air. The sounds of drops of moisture dripping off the palm fronds slowly mixes with the sounds of a drum. Slowly the drum overtakes the sounds of the drops. More drums join the first. The soft plucking of guitars strings is heard with a slow rhythm. The slow rhythm becomes a gentle gallop, speeds up and then for a few brief moments becomes a deluge, sounding like a rainstorm with the drums providing the thunder. The guitar stops suddenly and there is a pause in the music. The drums join together to make three enormous, earth shaking claps of thunder.
A figure is seen in front of the temple wearing enormous sunglasses, a thick gold chain with the name “Maceo” on it and vestments the color of doves.
A jaguar jumps down from the canopy of the jungle, and stands on its hind feed, picks up his tail and gives it a little twirl. He grabs his tophat from a nearby branch. He arches his back and shakes his hips to and fro. He jerks back his right paw and makes a sweeping arc with his left paw. He gives his head a nod to the left and a nod to the right. He does a little shimmy that is more of a ripple then a wave. He then proceeds to continue with the hip gyrations. Another jaguar makes a hiss from the branches and hisses “Show off”. The second jaguar pounces out of the tree making alternating hissing and growling sounds. Under the second jaguars fur, muscles rippled as it ran towards the first. The first jaguar takes flight leaving his tophat on the ground. “Fred, Bartholomeow you both need to cut it out,” said Maceo angrily. Fred and Bartholomeow retreated to the canopy jungle and seemed to disappear into the leaves. “Jaguars” explained Maceo.
After the jaguars are gone a stream of visitors come in small groups. Toltecs, Olmecs, Incas, Mayas, Tainos and numberless ancient people gather to witness the dance for it is their son, Maceo that is dancing. Enslaved people sit in chains, allowed for a few minutes to take a break away from harvesting and boiling sugarcane to witness the dance, for it is their son that is singing. Conquistadors and plantation owners gather to witness the dance, grouped close to the politicians in their silk clothes, for it is their unacknowledged son that is leading the celebration.
His people are the people of the sugarcane and ocean.
I take the third stage. I open the case I had brought with me and out came a faint glow. I picked up the shenai and examined it. I had seen and heard one before in my childhood. I remembered the train trip with the musicians playing the shenai and tabla. The shenai would start with a melody that whirred, whined, floated for a second and slowly transcend with the tabla beats coming in to carry the shenai melody and the passengers, as if the beats from the tabla were as much a part of the train as the pistons of the diesel engine. Looking through one end of the shenai I saw the rice paddies and water buffalo between the train tracks and the river. I saw my people sweating in the hot sun, planting the fields and orchards, and then years later savoring every bit of the flesh of a perfectly ripe mango, disregarding the juice running down in rivulets from their chins, down their necks on onto their chests. I put my lips to the instrument and tasted it. It tasted of Masi’s lemonade and tasted of the milky, spiced tea the chaiwallah served quickly and wordlessly; chai that was hot yet refreshing in the heat. I continued my exploration of the shenai and blew into it carelessly. The shenai took the warm breath coming from my inexperienced lips and transformed it into the starting notes of a raga. A spirit dancer appeared dressed in a sari and bedecked in gold and began her steps, dancing in step to the melody coming from the shenai while undulating her hips to a different, unheard beat. She beckoned to me and the crowd. “Come,” she said . “Come, I have been yours always”.
Mine are the people of rice and rivers, of mangoes sweeter than any.
The look, language and steps of the these dances are different but the message is the same. “Our ancestors struggled. But here we are, in this New World. Some of us have been here longer but it is our shared world. This is our dance. Do you care to join us?”