Vamos fazer o Glocaldance acontecer em BSB:
Estamos oferecendo aulas de dança do caminho da seda, da canela e das folhas sagradas. Venha dançar com a gente!
Veja nossa programação abaixo!

segunda-feira, 18 de outubro de 2010

Day 4- Dances of Central Asia and Silk road- Uyghur Dance from China

It was so nice to receive many lovely emails from wonderful friends supporting this project. It does give me hope and a new meaning to my life. Thank you Jesse for reminding me what once Emma Goldmanm, who stands as a major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism, said: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution" 


I do not know yet what sort of revolution I am taking part (apart from the anarchical decision that I am not voting this year for president), but definitely dancing is revolutionary and survives time and injustice. My sense of environmental justice, especially the defense of the human rights of traditional populations and their cultural traits always make me look at indigenous groups and their ancient dances. Here's some from China, more precisely from the Xinjiang Uyghur Province, where we find the Uyghur Dance. I love this folk dance so much, as for me is a missing link in the silk road history and culture, representing the survival of ancient waves of migration of Persians and Turks that  happened more than thousands of years from Central Asia to where today is China. This si my third source of inspiration to my new bird choreography.




This Uyghur dance is a famous sun  worship dance called Dap Usuli performed by Dilnar Abdulla, one of the most important Uyghar dancer in the world. This dance is performed by a soloist using Dap, an ancient Uyghur musical instrument. Sun worship was practiced by ancient Uyghurs!  Ancient Uyghur cities depict the sun as a deity.

This is a picture of me wearing a Uyghur dress and performing at the SF Ethnic Dance Festival in 2006.




I have never been in the Uyghur Province, but I heard that Uyghurs have a great love of singing and dancing. Their dances are so colorful, lively and reflect respect, bravery, openness, happiness and above all, optimism. I identify myself and resonate with the Uyghurs so much, as for the Uyghur: "dancing is a way of life." Their folk dances are all about posture, position, wrist and hand movement. Coordination is the key to the dancers beauty and posture to it's sense of importance. Turns are important parts of the dance. The dancers turn fast and then suddenly stop. All the dances have their own distinct turns and the climax of any dance is the increasing tempo of the turns as if each dancer is trying to out do the others. Uyghur folk dances also incorporate "shimmering". There is a rhythmic and continuous shimmering of the knees and a short shimmer when a step is changed. 

As I am choreographing the bird song and 1001 nights story from Day 3, hope I can tell a short story about birds and lovers, using Uyghur folk dance movements and dance.

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