Elemento Fogo

Priceless are those moments when the spirit catches you and whispers a fire into the back of your neck that gracefully opens your back while undulating down your spine like a serpent.  

From your movement in the world, there comes a new found humility and strength.

Técnica Silverstre Training - Escola de Dança

“Dance translates what I cannot say in words….” Rosangela Silvestre

Obakoso Rehearsal - YK Photo

Dripping in sweat, I’m lying flat on the floor with my arms stretched out in front of me along with other students in a sort of prostration to the drums. The heavy bass of the surdo drum vibrates through the floor and through my being.  It’s the end of an Afro Brasilian dance class and my face hurts from smiling.  As my forehead rests lightly against the floor, I recollect my first encounters with this music, with these rhythms, a style that I haven’t danced in many years. 

I was living in Japan when Brasil gently collided into my life.  It was February and a colleague had taken me to a carnaval celebration outside of Tokyo in Kawasaki-shi.  There were several performances comprised of large groups of women and men adorned in colorful sequins, feathers and beads.  The entire room seemed to be spinning in a loud boisterous eruption of rhythm. I was soon intertwined into a gorgeous texture of sound that weaved a pulsating energy through the cavity of my chest.  It was entirely intoxicating and it wasn’t long before I too was jumping up and down, swaying side to side, laughing in abandon and joining in a lyrical shout along w/ the crowd:  “Água

água água mineral, água mineral….você vai ficar legal!”

I wondered where this had been my entire life. 

I was approached by several young men who, looking at me, spoke to me in Portuguese.  Looking at them, I tried to communicate back in Japanese.  They were Brasilian born Japanese and Portuguese was their first language. I explained that I spoke Japanese, but that English was my first language, which made for quite a humorous moment of cross cultural confusion on all sides.

I had no idea what profound impact that evening would have on my life.  It was the first time I experienced live Brasilian music. It was one of my first experiences with the music and dance of the African Diaspora. Throughout the rest of my time in Japan, I found myself sort of immersed and embraced within a Brasilian ex-pat community. This meant that I learned to dance Samba do pé and Afoxé.  I learned to dearly love and appreciate the roots of the music. I stumbled upon the life force known as Oxóssi as I learned to make moqueca de peixe.  I learned that in fact everything tastes better when fried in that thick dark reddish dendê oil. I would return home speaking almost as much Portuguese as I did Japanese.

 

Teaching dance workshops on a return trip to Japan

That February outing in a suburb of Tokyo illuminated and altered the trajectory of my life in many ways. I became impassioned to embark upon piecing together the disparate parts of my identity as I came to recognize and embrace the beauty and diversity of the African Diaspora in the Americas and its artistic expression. I would eventually make several emotionally charged trips to Brasil, Cuba and Haiti. I would find myself in a sort of spiritual repatriation, walking with purpose on a journey that likely began lifetimes ago. I would come to find solace through the voices that echo from beneath the water, from behind the mirror…echoes reminding me that I’ll never again be broken, even when illusion makes my surroundings appear as shattered.

This morning’s class was like a celebration, a reunion with the infectious joy that ignites my heart.  Embedded in my muscle memory, the vernacular of movement held my body like a glove. I think I genuinely laughed for the first time in a long time. I was at a loss for words really, flooded and uplifted in gratitude and memory. I was without a script. I really didn’t even follow the choreography, as it wasn’t necessary.

Speechless.   

This morning, I just danced from my heart.

Photo Inspiration - Omi Olorun

Most Auspicious Aficionado of Outdoor Onsen

  



Zenkoji Temple in Nagano

So I descended from the mountainous terrain of rice fields of the northern countryside where my world was pretty much off the radar…. no cell phone or wireless connection and my daily concerns centered around breakfast sencha tea and enjoying the sensation of tiny flakes of snow melting on my nose and forehead while submerged to my neck in the warmth of an outdoor onsen. 
I was a bit surprised to find that I would have limited to no wireless access in the Tokyo area either, but I was also too relaxed to care.  Besides, the paper weight called laptop that fits in my purse is shiny and attractive. 


Osaka Jo Koen


I have a friend, Natsuki , who owns a dance studio in Tokyo and over the weekend I had the opportunity to teach 2 Haitian dance workshops.  There's a community of drummers in the Tokyo area who study Haitian music and they came out to play for the classes.  Watanabe, Gaku-san arranged the class schedule and all of the percussion.  Tanoshikatta!! It was incredibly fun….  There are several kissatens in and around the Tokyo named Caffe Haiti, one is off of Omote-Sando near Harajyuku station.  They serve coffee drinks and Japanese style curry rice, but are adorned with Haitian art and pictures of drums painted with veves.

I don't know what is more shocking, that gas is now cheaper than a can of milk tea from a vending machine or that I came into contact with Manchester United fans on the Yamanote Line the other day.  It's true, there they were with those large soccer scarves that read "UNITED TILL I DIE." Does anyone think that it's a coincidence that I'm here at the same time as the FIFA Club World Cup? (not THE World Cup, but the World Cup of regional club teams)  I nonchalantly moved to another car, not so much to avoid being associated with a rowdy group of foreigners, but more so to avoid anyone getting confused in thinking that I'm a Manchester United fan.   I caught the Man U – Gamba Osaka (love them!) match on TV from an izakaya the other night.  Gamba Osaka lost 5-3, but the match frickin' rocked!

   
 

The Drummers



My Dance Class