During the competition, one of the male's
primary functions seems to be showing off his
female partner. His attitude seems to say, "
Just take a look at my beautiful girl. Please
look at her. Isn't she tantalizing?".
Dressed in her frilly best, the girl has to feel
like a star. As dancer Melinda Forgacs, a student
of dance instructor Istvan Varhegyi, said,
"You can't even go on the dance floor if you
don't feel like being the most beautiful woman
out there.
"You can't compete,
thinking, 'Oh, my God that one's dress is far
more beautiful than my rag. Besides I'm so pale
and I have bags under my eyes.' If you did, you
couldn't even dance so that the audience would
like it. I am happy to see that they enjoy my
dancing."
A dance that's hard to learn, her
teacher says, requires patience, money and time.
You can't give up at the first setback; you have
to pay the teacher; and you need time to improve.
According to German Berger, from
Peru, where some of the dances demonstrated at
the Savaria originated, the only thing that can't
be taught in dance schools about Latin American
dances is the courtship aspect.
Partners show themselves to each
other and try to win each others hearts by
dancing.
"Latin Americans are very
romantic people. Courting is within us,"
Berger said. "You'll never see stern faces.
You court with smiles and attentive looks. If she
smiles, you feel wonderful and you dance not
because you have to, but because it feels
good."
As for Juanita Borcela - Cuban
dancer at Franklin Trocadero Cafee: "The
Europeans in Latin dances competitions have very
elegant dresses, wonderful choreography, I can
learn from it too, but it is a different thing
than the real Latin American. Just the name is
the same.
These are our dances." |
Nevertheless when you dance the jitterbug,
for example, whether you're a professional or
not, you feel swingy, festive, free, playful, for
it's a sort of 'Push me, twirl me, swing me!'
with lots of sighing and panting. When it comes
to a cha-cha-cha, the girl
dancer is flirtatious, coquetting for a second on
turns with everybody, and they love it. It's a
'When I embrace your neck, you take me by the
waist' style. Things become more passionate
with a samba. Past and future
come love nights gush in you, the passion for
your lover's body, how maddening can be her
gyrating hips, or his firm holds. Though you have
to swing a lot, the dance looks languishing, as
if the hot Brasilia was slowing your movements.
Rumba is called the lover's
dance. Love that lurks within you, real love,
with good and bad moments such as when you reach
after a girl who turned her back on you, playing
the hard to get. Or she says, "I'm mad about
you but we must behave ourselves." It's
suffering and joking at the same time.
"Our dances need a man and a woman, you
can't dance it alone!" pleaded Juanita.
"Dance gives birth to love. Why not?! If the
girl likes him she comes a bit closer to him, if
he is whispering something beautiful into her
ear, that he likes her eyes, or her movements,
she speeds up her dance and she moves more
lovely, and maybe something will happen, who
knows?!"
Maybe. Maybe the mating ritual succeeds.
The Budapest Sun, June 7-14, 1994
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