Field Notes 2 - A typical day in TSDA0330: Mande Dance, Music, and Culture

It's 4PM on a Tuesday or Thursday, and after taking off my socks and shoes, I join my family (an assigned group of about ten students who I spend all my class time with) on the dance floor. We sit in a lopsided circle waiting for class to begin, chatting or often just sitting in silence, as the dance floor fills up with other circles of families, laughing, talking, doing massage circles which we decide is a good idea so we do one too. I realize that I'm glad to have a set group of people to be with during class--in such a large class, it would be easy to become lost in the crowd--plus, it's nice to always have someone who can help you out when you have no clue how to move your body this way or that. It also breeds a sort of friendly competition between families--as Michelle once said, a sense of healthy competition can bring out the best in people (or at least motivate them to do their best).

After everyone is settled in, class starts with a warm-up led by one of the TAs. For a while we did the warm up exercises all facing the same direction, but with so many people it was always impossible to see or hear the TAs in the front of the room if you were more than three rows of people behind them (although as Michelle always says, just look at the person next to you!). Recently we have been doing the warm-up exercises in a large circle with smaller circles of people inside, which has made them feel much more communal.

After a long warm up of pliés, circumductions, and a variety of other stretches and strengthening exercises, we regroup with our families and make two thick lines of people against the room's two longest walls. Michelle then teaches us a dance step by demonstrating and breaking the moves down in the center of the room, and we practice on the sidelines, straining to see Michelle over other people's shoulders while trying to avoid the flailing arms of the people around you, trying not to hit them with your flailing arms either. After Michelle has demonstrated the step a few times, with anywhere from five to ten different movements in one step, the two drummers, who have just arrived with their Djembe and Joun-Joun, begin to play. With the rest of the families still lining the walls of the classroom, one family steps out onto the dance floor, at the end farthest from the drummers. The drummers then play a 'break', the signal for the dancers to start, and the ten or so students in that family, led by two TAs, stumble across the dance floor towards the drummers, a mix of people who have quickly perfected the move and others who are still struggling to figure out which way to turn, how to move their hips like that, when to jump, how to coordinate the seemingly unrelated hand and feet movements.

Though in any other situation, this behavior might be deemed "making a fool of oneself", in the supportive atmosphere of the class, everyone knows that the moves are hard, and that some people are quicker learners than others. Nonetheless, most people would prefer not to make a fool of themselves, so as one family moves down the dance floor towards the drummers, where they eventually stop and bow when the drummers play them the same signal that before told them to start, the people lined up against the wall watch and practice the moves in place. When all the families have had a turn to practice the move in the center of the room, Michelle teaches us another step and the process is repeated. Each class, we can usually manage to learn anywhere from one to four new moves, although some days we just review.

Eventually, we put the steps together to make a coherent dance. There is a specific order that we are supposed to do the moves in (although I don't know where this order comes from--it might just be arbitrarily made up by the teacher, or loosely based on tradition), but not a set number of times that we repeat them (the drummers decide when to stop and start the move, signaling us to switch moves with the specific drumming pattern called a break). As a family, we are expected to perform the dance in front of everyone once the class has learned it and to choreograph it (just by changing the shape that our group dances in a couple times throughout the piece). Our performance is then evaluated as a sort of test, based not just on our mastery of the moves but on how we work together as a group and interact and help each other out. Michelle once said something to the effect of: it's not just about doing your best, it's about how helping others to do their best too.

Yesterday's class was different than usual, because it was held outside on Lincoln Field since it was such a nice day out. Everyone felt a lot more self-conscious than usual--we had an impromptu audience watching us--whereas in the confines of the classroom, the only other people who can see you are doing the same potentially embarrassing things. I was able to grab my camera right before class ended, so even though these aren't quite typical examples of what the class is like, I will post them anyway.