First Word: Charmaine Pauls: Door

Door

            The door beckoned her. Ever since she walked past the red metal entrance with the word ‘Thunder’ in dead neon letter above, she wanted to know what was inside. Because it wasn’t a door that became her. Decent girls who wore dresses and practical shoes to work didn’t get private member invitations to nightclubs with red doors. And neither should they. Who knows what lurked inside? But when she walked down that street filled with pantyhose vendors and mobile phone smugglers, the dark side of it called to her, of what she was missing out on, behind that door.             So, that night, she waited across the street until the neon sign came to life, and ‘Thunder’ flashed with a daglow haze over the concrete. A waft of smoke curled around the door as it opened to let in the night, and the clientele. And her. She slipped into the darkness where flickering lights lit and cut a scene like rapid eye blinks. She was surrounded by movement, voices and music, and utterly alone. Her disappointment was thick, for she didn’t belong. And the world behind the red door still didn’t make sense to her.             A hand on her arm startled her. She looked up, into a pair of dark eyes. The man wore a black suit and tie. He didn’t belong either. He started at her for a long time, keeping her in the vice of his fingers, and then he slowly smiled.            “I think you need a drink,” he said, flashing her two sharp canines.            “Yes … yes,” she stammered, “but maybe, so do you.”            His expression froze, his eyes fixed o the vein she could feel throbbing in her neck. “Yes, you’re right. And I think I will.”            With his hand securely on her arm, he let her through the red door, back into the night, into the world she knew. Or maybe not.

First Word: Pamela Yorston: Cueca

Cueca

The Cueca is the national dance of Chile.  For several weeks of every year, leading up to the eighteenth of September, you will hear the music and find Chileans dancing everywhere - in parks, in city squares, on beachfront promenades -
            The story of the Cueca is the courting ritual of the rooster and the hen.  The gentleman, his lady on his arm, leads her in a promenade around the dancing ground.  As the music swells, she spins loose.  Handkerchief in her upraised hand, she  flutters and flirts, looking everywhere but at the gentleman who preens and stamps, bobs and swoops, circling her with a fusillade of intricate footwork, until at last, as the music comes to a close, he kneels on one leg before her on the ground, with the lady's foot planted firmly and triumphantly upon his raised knee.
 I would love to dance the Cueca.  Just once.  I’d curtsy to the bowing dancer who extends his hand to me, and then promenade arm in arm back and forth, back and forth as Cueca dancers do.  And then I’d execute the most graceful steps of a perfect Cueca leaving the crowd in awe.  Except that the Cueca is more a series of awkward little hops with a great deal of spirited stamping and hardly graceful. 
            Every Dieciocho the big supermarkets put on a folklore show with Cueca dancers.  After showing how it should be done in the first number, the dancers choose a new partner from the spectators.  This is where I speedily slither away into the crowd.
            My 71 year-old brother was recently married in London.  It was a big wedding with all the trimmings and the reception held in Lincoln’s Inn Old Hall.  Old like from 1485.  
            “I think we’ll do a Tango for the wedding dance, I’ve bought a video.  How hard can it be?” he said.  I wondered about this because my brother can’t even dance the Hokey Pokey. 
            He watched the video with his fiancée and I could see he was looking worried.  It wasn’t the T-A- N G O type of ballroom dance, but the real Argentine Tango, all be it a basic one.  I left him watching it for the 38th time. 
            I really wish I could dance the Tango.  Gliding  around the dance floor, following the indisputable lead of the absolutely confident male.  It’s not an ‘equal opportunity’ dance.  You follow your partner without counting steps in your head.  You listen and watch for the signal – a nudge with the shoulder, a tightening of the arm a lead in the small of the back.  The perfect synchronization of two minds and bodies.  Nothing you could learn from a video. 
            Oh, how I wish I could dance the Cueca and the Tango.
   

 

First Word: Jennifer Wickham: Cueca

Cueca

The Cueca is the national dance of Chile.  For several weeks of every year, leading up to the eighteenth of September, you will hear the music and find Chileans dancing everywhere - in parks, in city squares, on beachfront promenades -
            The story of the Cueca is the courting ritual of the rooster and the hen.  The gentleman, his lady on his arm, leads her in a promenade around the dancing ground.  As the music swells, she spins loose.  Handkerchief in her upraised hand, she  flutters and flirts, looking everywhere but at the gentleman who preens and stamps, bobs and swoops, circling her with a fusillade of intricate footwork, until at last, as the music comes to a close, he kneels on one leg before her on the ground, with the lady's foot planted firmly and triumphantly upon his raised knee.


I love la cueca. My husband hates it. He feels embarrassed it´s his country´s national dance. But as I observed him during the Independence Day celebration at Olivia and Sofia´s school while all the senior year students danced, I caught him watching and smiling. Teachers performed, clapping and circling and twirling white handkerchiefs around, keeping that tension in flirtatious eye contact, while intricately stomping around with some fancy foot work. If I´d been forced to dance, I would have looked like a clod-hopping lummox.
            Finally the seniors poured into the crowd to ask their parents to dance, promenading back and forth for the next round.  Moved, I held my iphone up to record the dance, but in other festive parents stood in the way cheering and eating empanadas in huaso hats. At least something was recorded.             Olivia ran up to my husband and said, “Papi, you´d better start practicing; soon I´ll be asking you to dance up there with me.”             He cringed. “I never learned. You´re going to have to teach me.”            Later at dinner, Olivia asked him. “What do you mean you never learned? It´s the national dance…”            “I went to a British school and believe it or not, they never taught us. It was a mistake. We were taught – not directly, of course – to look down on the cueca.            And so the cueca launched us into a discussion of cultural differences, segregation, classist attitudes, patriotism, and the pros and cons of saluting a flag.             We have several flags waving in our unconscious minds around our dining room table. On my husband´s father´s side: The British and Italian flag (and the Peruvian flag is rejected). On his mother´s side: The German and Chilean flag. On my side, it´s the American and British flags waving into history.  We have darling mutts. We each told stories of our family histories. Of the Mayflower, the wagon trains making it to Oregon, ships crossing Cape Horn, boats docking in Valparaíso, tickets purchased on trains, planes, and passenger boats. And finally, the one-way ticket I purchased to Chile in August, 1997. To give it a try. That was seventeen years ago. (Still giving it a try!)            For the 4-day weekend, most Chileans head to the beach.  But following our family history of traveling against the grain, we loaded the car with skies and headed to Portillo, located on the Chilean / Argentinian boarder in the Andes Mountains. Because of the holiday and strike on the Argentine side in customs, the usual line-up of snakes of semi-trucks had virtually disappeared. We counted 3 cars on the way up the switchbacks.             Leslie told stories of his old biking days, as if I´d forgotten any of the details; I survived them with him. The ten years he trained to keep up with his bike buds, then beat them, and then set the new record which still stands. The race took place after ridding from the Pacific ocean in Viña del Mar to the small town of Los Andes at the foothill of the mountains. The big race was the climb through a small town and wine country, up the switchbacks to Portillo, Chile´s world-famous ski center. He earned his trophy three years in a row. I was his dedicated water girl.  I was pregnant one year, carried a baby in a harness another, and a toddler dressed in a yellow jersey the third year.            We´re still living with the consequences of such a feat.             We were the fifth car in the parking lot (something to improve for next year, of course). A bluebird day of skiing. Ready for an early lunch, we headed to one of our favorite little lodges, Tio Bob´s.  You have to take a pretty steep lift to get to this rustic restaurant with a wood-burning stove and a nice grill. Maybe not to our surprise, outside, on the snow-covered terrace and magnificent view of the Andes, there was a Chilean “quincho” – or barbeque - going on with all the festivities. Red, white, and blue decorations flapping in the breeze and foreigners huddling up around tree trunk tables and heading to the buffet line for chicha, a hard alcohol made from apples, a countryside tradition, skewered beef and vegetables, homemade beef empanadas, baked potatoes, baked bread with pieces of chicharón (pork fat) and a tasty slab of beef  dabbed constantly with bunches of cilantro used as a kitchen utensil, soaked in Chilean pebre.             Before we knew it, everyone stood as they raised the flag, people sang the national anthem (my girls told me I had to learn it) and when we took our seats, the music started and everyone started clapping in unison, signaling the start of a cueca.  To my surprise, nobody came out dressed in elegant costumes. The snow was the stage. Skiers jumped up to perform my new favorite rendition: The cueca in the snow. Elegant clod-hoppers, to be sure, but that flirtatious eye contact and tension, the circling and teasing and twirling of handkerchiefs, transcended the ski bibs and goggles and was enough to make me believe that I, a true lummox in my own boots, with a touch of chicha on my breath, was as good a cueca dancer as any up there in those mountains where this dark brown earth met the bluebird sky.

First Word: Tessa Too-Kong: Cueca

Cueca

The Cueca is the national dance of Chile.  For several weeks of every year, leading up to the eighteenth of September, you will hear the music and find Chileans dancing everywhere - in parks, in city squares, on beachfront promenades -
            The story of the Cueca is the courting ritual of the rooster and the hen.  The gentleman, his lady on his arm, leads her in a promenade around the dancing ground.  As the music swells, she spins loose.  Handkerchief in her upraised hand, she  flutters and flirts, looking everywhere but at the gentleman who preens and stamps, bobs and swoops, circling her in a fusillade of intricate footwork, until at last, as the music comes to a close, he kneels on one leg before her on the ground, with the lady's foot planted firmly and triumphantly upon his raised knee.


The Chilean cueca is the courtship dance par excellence.  It reflects the national pastime of flirting and double entendre… with comments on how my foot stamping was going, and to make sure I danced in only one fonda! How do national dances evolve, I wonder…does the cueca have anything to do with the matador and the bull, stamping his feet, poor thing, with no idea of the outcome… Flirtation with danger is the name of the game, and some of us do get out of practice! Just like in the animal kingdom, it is the woman who leads the poor huaso by the nose, for all his posturing and foot stamping (zapateo) – she is the hunter, drawing him in with her flirtatiousness, hypnotizing him until she decides to put an end to the circling and close in for the kill. Literally and figuratively, she draws the poor fool to his knees and puts her foot elegantly down to deliver the final blow.
            Dancing in the Caribbean is a more uncensored affair – and I’ve forgotten what I did know and could never perform the contortions they get up to these days, x-rated to boot (no pun intended). I had never considered myself a prude, but Carnival in Port-of-Spain has been an eye-opener. I joined the band with my Trini friend for J’ouvert morning, 4am to sunrise, covered in mud, oil, paint, dancing in costumed rags behind our band of “devils” in the street, to party, “jam”, “wine” and tramp (“chip”) to calypso music, together with the other participants in the band, whatever their colour, class, creed or country: all you need is a cup of rum in one hand and rhythm in your soul. Carnival is all so well-organized, with bands, costumes, booze, bathrooms, buses to rest in, food, music, a three-day orgy, bacchanalia galore. There must be something about the spring, the changing of the seasons with the sun’s traverse that brings out the pagan in us.