Black Luv, The Dance

I love dancing with my people. When I was in Ghana five years ago I fell in love with communal dancing. One of my favorite dance experiences of all times was in a small village called Adalku in the Volta region of Ghana. I danced for five hours from sun to rain, from dust to mud. The musicians created rhythmic escapades with recycled metal, tire rims, scraps, and more. There were no traditional drums or instruments, just found objects. I was amazed at the improvisational genius of the indigenous human spirit. Art is everywhere, I remember realizing for the first time. After that experience of organically jamming with the whole village thru the thunderstorm, I wrote a poem that began to articulate what would become my movement philosophy. The opening line captured it all: "The most beautiful dance you do is the one you do with your people."

I really felt I had tapped into the source that would feed my whole movement evolution. "My people," as I have come to know during this growing period is everyone--Afrikan folks, women, youth, DC people, environmentalists, womb activists, healers, mothers, writers, elders--everyone, like I said! I realized that the most important thing about dance to me is that it brings humanity together. That it gives us a space to share, to commune, to grow, to heal, to love each other even more. And this is what I have put my energy into as I have been spiraling into my movement these past years.

I was reminded of the critical role of community in my dance when I attended Washington, DC's annual Black Luv Festival yesterday. The sun was blazing, the children were running, the elders were nodding, and the MCs were working hard to keep the energy high. I relaxed on a blanket, looked up at the sky, and thought, "I am home now." This is my ideal space: grass, sun, music, family, veggie food, peaceful vibrations, and dancing. What more did I need? I felt so good and full of love.

The crowd was sparse early in the afternoon. They wanted people to get up and dance to raise the energy. Ususally at that type of request, I am the first person up. But today I am grounded in my spot on the blanket, as observer--(I also know that I'll eventually be dancing later on and once I get up, I never sit back down until I'm at home). Instead, I took pictures of the growing momentum, chatted with folks I hadn't seen, and rested in the warmth of the sun. One of the MCs wanted to amp up the energy when he saw the crowd filling in. He sent forth the word for what I call the "Black People's Right's of Passage Dance in the United States"--the Electric Slide. This dance is not complicated or very different from other line dances. In fact when I was dancing with survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, I learned other dances similar to the Electric Slide. Nevertheless, around these parts, the Electric slide is done at every family reunion, wedding, barbeque, graduation party, and caberet (I even taught this dance to children in Ghana, African Diaspora dance exchanging all the way!). There's no escaping it--and why would you want to? The Electric Slide is the chance for everyone to dance together. This is when all the shy people join in, when all the elders groove on the periphery so as not to get knocked over by the super-inventive youth who've incorporated a back flip into the standard choreography. The Electric Slide is, essentially, everyone's dance.



The power of dancing together is so transformational. That is what I tapped into while studying and dancing in Ghana. That is what I experienced in India and Bali, and in West Philly at the Trinidad and Tobago Festival, and countless other places. It's magnetic, this space of communal dance. Everyone feels loved, everyone feels welcomed, everyone feels celebrated. When we are activating the love energy, then we also activate peace, compassion, forgiveness, joy, creativity, and more. The dance is not merely social, it is survival. It is a prerequisite of healthy, stable, thriving communities. That is why we dance all these years, through every revolution, shift in humanity, the dance continues.
After the Electric Slide, the next dance we did together was the all-mighty Soul Train Line. The MC put out a call for some of us to start the line and this time I bounded up to the front. I was "ON" now, ready to agitate more movement for the masses. Several others joined me in forming two lines facing each other so that we created a "runway" which we would dance down in pairs. This is so fun because you get partnered with whoever is on the other side of line and you make the dance work between you. Talk about facilitating more peace, cooperation, and understanding in communities--the Soul Train Line captures all those themes in an instant. There's no holding up of the line. You can't not go because you don't like your partner; you must simply dance. And your cooperation sustains the momentum of the community dance. We learn so many skills for strengthening humanity in the dance. How could we not be dancing?

When we finished the Soul Train Line, the go-go band Mambo Sauce came on. Mambo sauce is a combination of condiments that you can only get in DC carry-out restaurants. Some have tried to ponder what it is, but why would you? It goes with chicken wings, and back when I ate meat, yes, I too was a Mambo Sauce connoisseur. Anyway, go-go music is also unique to DC, so the band named themselves after the one thing you can only get in DC. Go-go is DC's ancient-future indigenously relevant contemporary Afrikan music. It's syncopated, layered, ecstatic and reflects the hearts of the DC people. Growing up in DC I LOVED go-go music, and still do. So when Mambo Sauce took the stage, and the crowd was already hyped up, all factors were in place for our communal spiritual dance explosion.

I had lost my shoes long ago and was barefoot on the warm cobblestones. Encased on all sides by everybody, I let go everything. I jerked and jumped, slid and spun, bumped booties with whoever, screamed and laughed at the beauty of all of us dancing black folks. We're dancing despite all the drama and deaths, the despair and financial worries, the fear of losing something or someone--we're dancing together in this moment that is all we really have. It is in these moments that I am happiest. Cameras wove in and out of gyrating bodies, the crowd roared along with the band (because we all know the words even if we don't "listen" to go-go"). I danced with sisters I know and those that I don't. It was a beautiful moment of infinite black love. Imagine the wondrous potential of all the globe's inhabitants to generate that much love in a dance we do together. Such is the intention of the Love-Joy, and we're just beginning.

Vintage Binah: March of 2003, dancing in Adalku with village dance ensemble