Root Magazine

Music, Dance & Duende: the Romani

Rana Halprin is one of the few Gadje (non-Gypsy outsiders) that speaks Romanes from living amongst the Rom in the United States and Europe.  In the mid-1970s she lived with the legendary Diego de Gastor family.  She has devoted the better part of 30 years to documentation and dance within their communities.

Rana grew up dancing with her mother, the famous Anna Halprin, and was instinctively comfortable with the Flamenco Puro form as an expression from deep within the soul.

The following essay is an excerpt from her book in progress titled California to Campland:  the Way of the Gypsies (Rom).  The book will cover her long and enduring involvement with the Romani in California, Italy and Spain.  Rana is also putting together film and still photography footage into a documentary on Romani refugees.  This film covers the topic of dance and music as sustaining culture and survival, that being food for the soul.

root is honored to welcome Rana Halprin as a contributor.  For more information please visit her website at www.PhotoMythology.com .

Marcy Mendelson
Editor

Photo essay link:  Romani Dance

 

 

Throughout the world, Romani (or Gypsy) musicians and dancers are gifted and inspired artists, honoring individuality, creative talent and personal expression. The arts of music and dance of the Roma range from India to the famously provocative Flamenco Puro to the haunting beauty of Eastern European music and the French Django Rinehart and “Gypsy Jazz.”

More than technique, it is personal style and attitude which makes music and dance distinctly Roma. For the Rom, the arts of music and dance are an expression of emotion, placing high value on improvisation, intensity, and originality. The Romani arts, including Flamenco, act as a system for teaching and claiming cultural history and serves as a collective healing. Romani music and dance is, at its peak, an expression of talent and sublimation.  It is a manner of enduring and transcending life’s emotional repertoire of sorrow, grief and pain, as well as a celebration of life’s beauty, love, joy and vitality. The arts are a highly regarded force and discipline in many cultures. For many Romani, music and dance are “food for the soul”, a fully integrated and cherished aspect of life. 

Creative spirit permeates Romani life through music and dance, enhancing health and enduring spirit (often referred to as the enduring Roma). Their art transcends the worst of situations and often-extreme poverty and racism.  Romani dance is an expression of the culture and how the process of art is integral to healing and personal freedom of expression of Romania (Romania being the ethos Romani culture).

 

Flamenco, as a “Gypsy" art has been acknowledged and influential in Spain for years, giving the Gitanos a rightful (though far from equal) place. Flamenco thrives particularly around Seville, in Southern Spain. Dancers and musicians travel from all over the world to the Flamenco centers around Seville to study this complex, provocative and rhythmic style.

Within Flamenco there is the Flamenco jondo (deep profound flamenco) and more upbeat Flamenco such as rumba and bulerias. In the Flamenco circles there are the “purists”, those that believe in the art of pure Flamenco, and the new generation of individuals exploring fusion. I believe both has it’s place. After all, life is constant change and an important part of creativity is to develop new expressions. Life is constant growth therefore, so is art.

 

Just as Black Americans hold claim to soul music which originates from the Black American experience, the experience of Flamenco is a reflection of culture.  It emerges from a deeply ingrained understanding of the compass (rhythms), duende (soul or transcendence) and gracia (attitude). Gracia is central to Flamenco Puro, it is a way of behaving, a point of view of life.  In other words it is an expression of Romani culture.  True Flamenco is also the ability to be spontaneous and create unique style or personal “signature” such as the Farrucos, the Amayas, the legendary families of Moron, Jerez, and Utrera De la Frontera.

Flamenco Puro is the roots of flamenco from which numerous styles have borrowed  and  emerged. Flamenco dance, in all it’s forms, fusions and history is an enormous subject of many books which I do not aim to cover in this brief commentary, nor the purpose here.

Flamenco Puro is first and foremost a cultural and personal expression and is built on a strong expertise, ease and spontaneity due to having grown up within the culture of the art.  Romani music and dance steps can be copied, but, much to the chagrin of gadje (outsiders), Gypsy music and dance belong to the Rom.

Rana Halprin

Copyright: all rights reserved 

 

 

Carnavalesco - Part II

Photo Essay Link: Carnaval Costumes

Jair Oliveira hails from Recife, Brazil and currently lives just outside of San Francisco, California.  He is a costumer, artist and samba dancer.

There is no school for learning how to make a carnaval costume.  One has to figure it out all by themselves and hope for the best.  Jair has an uncanny ability to put together various elements of style, color and theater to create a work that transforms the wearer into a fabulous exotic creature.

These costumes are meant to read from far away.  They are monumental up close.  Made from scratch, Jair works long hours in his studio.  Most times he doesn't need to sketch out a concept before jumping into the process of gluing, sewing and fabricating the frames that hold hundreds of feathers.  His studio is colorful array of sequins, feathers and bits of shiny cloth strewn all over the place.  What emerges from this chaos is pure fantasy.

Jair makes custom carnaval costumes and headdresses for men and women across the country.  If you'd like to contact him regarding his work click the link here:  Jair Oliveira

Carnavalesco - Part I

Costumer and Samba Dancer, Jair Oliveira models one of his creations.

As San Francisco gears up for their annual Carnaval Parade this Sunday, dancers, musicians and designers are working around the clock in preparation.  Not just a Brazilian affair, the SF Carnaval is a celebration of all cultures of the city.  California's 'largest multi-cultural celebration', the theme this year is Suenos de la Ninez - Land of Childhood Dreams.

Carnaval San Francisco

Check back here in a few days as the full story and photo essay on Jair's beautiful designs will be posted.  His costume this year is top secret until the parade so look for Energia do Samba dancers, #33 on the line-up!

So You Think You Can Dance

So you think you can what?

For root's American readers, you've all probably heard of this show on the Fox network.  Well, its back for a second season starting tonight.  Dancers compete for a big cash prize as they are given 3 styles each week to perform in: lyrical, hip-hop and ballet is what the website says, but there was a lot of partnered Latin dance in the first season.  A cocktail of schmaltz, Dance Fever and false hopes, it is great fun to watch once the viewer can toss aside their cynicism.

That said, San Francisco's Hip-Hop dance teacher, Allan Frias went very far in the competition and we are very proud of him for it!

Say what you will about the nature of television, its just proof that dance is on everyone's mind these days!

Last season's winner, Nick Lazzarini

Getting started in Flamenco

Esflamenco.com is one of the internet's best resources for all things Flamenco.  To break down such an exhaustive subject is a monumental task and they do it very well.

“There is no music that is richer or more alive in all of Europe”
Manuel de Falla

So how does one jump in?

Start by reading through these articles on the basics of the artform.

Listen to the music, find a local dance class and enter with an open mind, a lot of patience, and most importantly, a passion to keep at it.  Flamenco is not easy and there will be many classes where, as one dancer put it, you will cry into your ruffled skirt.  You are not going to be the only one frustrated on occasion, but the rewards of feeling the movement and the music have no comparison.  You just have to start.

Katherine Dunham Tribute

Katherine Dunham on Broadway in 1941, in "Cabin in the Sky."

The great dancer and choreographer, Katherine Dunham, passed away last Sunday at the age of 96.  She was a pioneer in dance, bringing Afro-Caribbean and African American dance to the front of the world stage.

The New York Times writes:

Whatever else Katherine Dunham was in her long and productive life, which ended on Sunday at 96, she was a radiantly beautiful woman whose warmth and sense of self spread like honey on the paths before her......  Miss Dunham was one of the first American artists to focus on black dance and dancers as prime material for the stage. She burst into public consciousness in the 1940's, at a time when opportunities were increasing for black performers in mainstream theater and film, at least temporarily. But there was little middle ground there between the exotic and the demeaning everyday stereotypes.

How Katherine Dunham Revealed Black Dance to the World

Another NY Times article can be read here.   
For an amazing and educational list of links to videos and tributes take a look at Great Dance Blog's Katherine Dunham Video Tribute.

The Films of Tony Gatlif

Tony Gatlif's films honor his Roma heritage.  After a childhood in Algiers, Gatlif arrived in France in 1960 following the Algerian War of Independence.  He struggled for years to break into the film industry, playing in several theatrical productions until his directing debut, La Tete en Ruine in 1975.  He followed it with the 1979 La Terre au Ventre, a story of the Algerian War of Independence.

The 1993 documentary Latcho Drom, meaning Safe Journey in the Rom language, traces the journey of the Roma from Pakistan through Eastern Europe and drops the audience off in Spain.  There is no dialogue in this documentary, only music and dance, and yet we're left with a deep understanding of the emotions, tragedies and hopes that follow and push the Rom through the world.  Gatlif connects the dots over the course of the film as we witness the first dancer's movements and how they evolve into the final sequences of Flamenco.   In this final sequence, a group of Gypsy women gather on the street of an unidentified Spanish town and sing about the hatred they feel from the outside world. "Some evenings, like many other evenings, I find myself envying the respect you give your dog," go the lyrics for this traditional flamenco ballad.  While many moments of this film are upbeat, these are the most powerful.

Latcho Drom's soundtrack was a bestseller and you can listen to a few samples here.

In Gadjo Dilo, Gatlif takes us into the community of Roma in Romania.  In the film, the stranger is Stephane, a Parisian musicologist who wanders the Romanian countryside in search of a legendary singer whose haunting vocals fascinated his father.  He reverses the role of cultural immersion first with the title, meaning Crazy Stranger, and throughout the journey Stephane takes in gaining acceptance and learning to function as a Rom and no longer a Westerner.

The Central Europe Review writes:

There is a lot to say about the role Gatlif's film plays as a mediator between Western and Romani cultures, and it is certainly reasonable to contrast the two, given the gulf in understanding that separates them. The Roma remain the least integrated and the most persecuted people of Europe. Their recent history in Romania, where an estimated two million live, is particularly dark.

Read the full review here:  Gadjo Dilo Review

Vengo feels like a classic melodrama crossed with a dance film.  Set in Southern Spain, the film is about two warring families, however the main character is really the Flamenco itself.

Film Critic, Rachel Gorden writes:

.. the music and dancing are the key roles in Vengo.  Between the
variety shown and the pride taken in skill and passing down of
tradition, it's easy to become mesmerized with the culture.  A nice
added touch is that men take as much pride as women in being able to
evoke physical grace.  And though the dancing does have a sexually
alluring quality, it is not the reason for participation.

Read the full review here:  Rachel Gordon

All three film are available on DVD and are an inspiration for every student of Flamenco and Roma culture.

Sevillanas

Sevillanas is a joyful and lively couples dance performed at the Ferias in the South of Spain characterised by its gracefulness, liveliness, nimble dynamism and its flexibility.  A type of Castilian folk dance, it is not truly a form of Flamenco, but one can consider it a close relative.

EsFlamenco.com writes that Sevillanas are a "traditional folk song proceeding from the seguidilla  manchega (from La Mancha), which has taken on some features of flamenco. It was born to accompany the dance that is performed in pairs, in series of four sevillanas. It is the Andalusian dance that has become most popular and, at present, even people in nightclubs dance to it. Once it used to be danced in patios or houses used for neighbourhood gatherings, also known as corrales, and people have always danced to them in romerias and other Andalusian feasts,  Increasingly more people know their steps, as a result of the proliferation of academies."

A wonderful video of a couple dancing Sevillanas can be found on YouTube here:  Sevillanas Video

More of the topic of Sevillanas can be read here at Flamenco World .

Flamenco

La Feria Andalucia in Barcelona is where this picture was taken. The following photo essay is from this event in 2003 where I first (naively) realized that Flamenco is not merely a dance performed between courses at your local Spanish-themed restaurant.  La Feria Andaculia is one of many festivals that bring out entire families partying till dawn, dancing Sevillanas and seeing performances of famous dancers and musicians.  Enormous vats of paella, amusement rides, endless cups of La Guita and tent after tent of Flamenco dancing.  The most popular of these happens in Seville, Andalucia called La Feria de Abril.

Flamenco is a culture and a deeply rooted passion.  Its various songs and styles express the generations of the journey of the Roma.  Jewish, Romani and Moorish influences can be witnessed in the Flamenco of Spain. 

root will be uncovering these origins and featuring articles and photos on teachers, dancers and the Roma.

View the photo essay by the thumbnail at the left of the page, or click here.

Forró

"I'm a northeasterner, and I have forró in my blood."

The New York Times' Cultured Traveler featured a story on Forró, the folk music and dance of Northeastern Brazil.

            "The best dancers were stuck together at the thighs, moving in such unison that they looked like marionettes controlled by a single set of strings."

Click the link above for the full story and multimedia slide show.

According to Wikipedia, here is how to dance Forró:

         "Forró is danced in partners, usually man and woman, close together. The man's right leg is between the woman's legs and her right leg is between his. His right arm wraps around her waist and he holds her right hand with his left hand off to his left side. Dancers move in sync with one another. One step is as follows: for the man (opposite for the woman) are simply right-left-right,(hold), left-right-left, (hold) and repeat. Another basic step is two steps to the left and two steps to the right, while varying direction each time, to dance in a circle. There are also many more complex steps. Often, as in much of South American dancing, the woman is spun in various ways by the man. One can learn by watching a couple dancing and paying attention to the hips. They are key."