Opening the Timba chapter

"What is timba?" has become a recurring question in Solares. So much so that I knew the time had come to address it, because deflecting the matter further risked frustrating inquisitiveness (a damaging prospect) and allowing blurred narratives a chance to take root.

The timing of it couldn't have been better, I've been scouting out different themes for use as a contrasting activity alongside to the chapter on percussive attack. But the challenge lay in how to address the question of timba through the experiences of a dancer. Conventional approaches tackle the topic through its layers of percussion - explained by drummers for drummers. How can timba be understood by a dancer with a limited base of percussion experience to draw upon?

THAT's the sort of challenge I love to sink my teeth into.

Given the misconception, here in the UK, that rueda de casino should ideally be danced to timba, I think it would be useful to use rueda de casino as a lens through which timba can be examined, to reveal 'truths' and misconceptions.

Exercise One: Rueda de casino, federated calling
Partnered ensemble, to music. Vocabulary restricted to: 'dame'; 'enchufla-dame'; 'enchufla-dile que no'; 'enchufla con mambo'; and, the 'pa'rriba' modifier. Calling was devolved to all members of the group, each call was preceded by the 'oyé' aural cue with the simultaneous raise of the free arm as a corroborating visual cue. Conflicts where resolved by eye contact. This is the equivalent to co-operative musicianship observed in African music performance.

Four iterations of this exercise were required until a good level of proficiency was attained. According to all participants, the dynamism of the rueda was elevated to a plane not experienced before. They where no longer passively engaged in the interpretation of one person's call. Instead, they had to open their eyes and ears for calls emanating from around the circle, and decide upon the next appropriate call and issue it.

Participants also came to realise the importance of the timing of the 'oyé' cue with its concomitant raised arm visual cue. The energy of discovery from the federated calling exercise was perfect, necessary even, for what was to follow.

Briefing: "What does rueda mean?"
Gathering everyone into a circle, I asked, "what does rueda mean?" I received the well-intentioned published responses such as "it means 'a wheel'".

"Yes, that's right on a literal level" I said, "but what does it mean when we're arranged in a circle?"
Puzzled looks abounded. "The circle in this case, and also in rumba, represents the Circle of Creation; and that is what we're celebrating." You could have heard a pin drop. I launched into a short story on one of sub-Saharan Africa's many concepts of creation, Oyá, before and including its embodiment as a Yoruban Orisha.

Exercise Two: Rueda de casino, visualising the Circle of Creation
Partnered ensemble, to music. Federated calling. Vocabulary restricted to: 'dame'; 'enchufla-dame'; 'enchufla-dile que no'; 'enchufla con mambo'; and, the 'pa'rriba' modifier. Participants were asked to visualise the circle of creation while dancing rueda.

The outcome of this exercise was not as I'd expected. Although it possessed energy, that energy came from the practice of federated calling, but it lacked the textural quality which combined visualisation achieves. It turned out to be the case. I'd made the mistake of assuming that participants were (a learning point for me) already familiar with the relevant imagery.

Briefing: Oyá as the storm of creation
Participants encountered difficulty because they were visualising the Cycle of Creation - birth through death - and hence could not see its relevance in the exercise. I re-pitched the visualisation as the storm at the birth of Creation, immediately when the sky and sea where sundered.

Exercise Two (modified): Rueda de casino, visualising the Storm of Creation
The outcome was as I'd hoped: and ensemble performance of dynamism with a quality of emotional depth. I decided to stack on another layer of skill to assess participants' levels of naturalisation.

Exercise Three: Rueda de casino, visualising the Storm of Creation, attack 'in the pocket'
The refinement of an 'in the pocket' attack was introduced, intended: to create a powerful inexorability to the performance; and, to introduce a counterpointing element of restraint to the energy of federated calling. In this, no participants were successful.

I decided not to prosecute the contextualisation of learned skills further. Instead, I decided to work with what was successful this session: the use of metaphor.

Exercise Four: Rueda de casino, visualising the self as an Agent of Creation
In keeping with the concept of Oyá as a powerful event and the creation of the first land which followed, two sub-metaphors: 'drawing thunder' (with each arm-raise) and 'creating earth' (with each step) were introduced, helping participants visualise their equal roles as agents during the Act of Creation.

Conclusion
Power, cohesion, emotional commitment. These were present in the rueda performance at unprecedented levels. Such is the potency of understanding dance as moving metaphors.

"Will this session change the way I dance?" asked one participant before the session started.
I thought for a while before answering, "yes."
I heard another snort in disbelief. He wasn't sniggering now.

Instead I got, "how does this fit with learning what timba is?"

Loo Yeo

"slowandslow"

Yesterday's Solares fell in that 'no man's land' between Christmas and New Year. With some regulars being away or unavailable during the festive season, I was presented with a double-length session; an opportunity which I was all to happy to take advantage of.

The circumstances demanded a programme of content which was:

• varied or simple-but-challenging enough to avoid learner saturation;
• non-core so as not to penalise those who couldn't attend; and yet,
• of meaningful importance to benefit those who'd committed to attend.

Tricky. Very tricky.

I briefed them that this workshop was going to be all about elevating the quality of what they already had.

Warm Up: Simple embodiment transitions, with maracas
Solo, to music. Playing maraca rhythm. Lower body moving between the Caribbean sway, marking rhythm on the spot, walking forward.

Warming up with the maracas exercise was the cornerstone to the workshop's design because: it allowed me to assess the quality of participants' dance 'slows' as transited through Caribbean sway to walks; and, it opened up an alternative route in the workshop narrative - back to maracas development - should participants become learning saturated with the primary activity.

Briefing: The "slowandslow" vocalisation
Even though the "quick, quick, slow" vocalisation (of last session) makes sense, there is a fundamental flaw in the vocalisation - the word "slow" is only one syllable long. Dancers using the vocalisation will time their movements to the rhythm of the vocalisation, instead of the logic of the vocalisation i.e. they will dance three quick movements instead of two quick and one slower.

To achieve the desired slow movement, the vocalisation needs to be changed such that the 'slow' is rhythmically longer yet still logical. The ballroom adaptation is useful to know, and highly successful. The vocalisation is: "quick, quick, slowandslow".

Exercise One: "slowandslow" with long nails
Solo, without music. Long nails practice synchronous with the "slowandslow" (beats 3&4) vocalisation.

Exercise Two: "quick, quick, slowandslow" with long nails
Solo, without music. Complete embodiment rhythm, on the spot. Long nails practice synchronous with the "slowandslow" (beats 3&4) vocalisation. I danced with each participant to provide a movement archetype as reference.

Exercise Three: "quick, quick, slowandslow" with long nails
Solo, to music. Complete embodiment rhythm, on the spot. Long nails practice synchronous with the "slowandslow" (beats 3&4) vocalisation.

Participants reported feeling a deeper quality of relationship with the floor, almost adhesive and elastic. Once acquired they found it challenging to revert to their customary more superficial relationship with the floor. I introduced them to the concept of 'quality of movement' and labelled what they were experiencing as "deep movement" and "light movement" respectively.

Exercise Four: Relationship of qualities of movement with music
As the participants became accustomed to the exercise, freeing up cognitive headroom, I asked them:

1. "Does quality of movement affect your relationship with the music?"
2. "Which instruments do you have a stronger relationship with using light movement?"
3. "Which instruments do you have a stronger relationship with using deep movement?"
4. "Are there any instrument-relationships which do not change?"

The answer came back a resounding "yes". How you move affects how you listen. One song demonstrated this clearly: Los Hermanos Lebron's updated "La Temperatura" from their 40th Anniversary album, vol.2. (2009).

At this point, after multiple iterations, participants were comfortable with individual practice. It seemed prudent to provide them with a broader more relevant context, and introduce an additional variable.

Exercise Five: "quick, quick, slowandslow" in the rueda de casino context
Partnered, without music. Rueda de casino basic step, attenuated partner hold.

The basic step involved a small back step on the circumference side and a small forward step on the axial side on the quicks, and a close step (not a guapea side step) in-between on the slows.

I demonstrated how the basic step could be derived from the Caribbean sway by: contracting the width of the side step until a close step; and, converting the axial step from a small back step to a similarly-sized forward step.

The attenuated hold avoided the overtly expansive arm-cycling on the circumference side, and maintained contact between palms on the axial side throughout.

By silencing the consciously-induced noise from the arms, participants were able to feel how movement born of the upward joint cascade flowed into the partnership frame. Participants found this revelatory; how the torque built up from the floor manifested itself in articulations of the contredanse hold, as natural resultant movements - the same movements which are commonly overtly 'simulated' by dancers without those skills.

This is the difference between derivative movement (former), and prescriptive movement (latter).

At this point, the two hours where up. In the excitement of discovering the relevance of "slowandslow"-sponsored movement quality in the rueda basic, I think participants' overlooking of the 'big picture' difference between derived and prescribed movement can be forgiven. It gives me something to dedicate a Solares workshop to in the future.

Loo Yeo

The Rueda Academy - The Key Concepts

At the Academy, we believe rueda:

• has a framework based on the Cuban son
• has a basic timing which is atiempo
• has the performance musculature of rumba
• is home to cultural accents, like those derived from dances dedicated to the Orishas
• is a synchronous coordinated ensemble activity
• has tremendous freedom for creative self-expression
• should involve on-lookers equally

We achieve this by addressing ideas and dance skills at three scales:

1. The individual scale – “your voice in the story”
We ensure that you bring your best rhythms to the party
We free you to express your joy compellingly
We help you exude confidence
We help you become a cultural insider

2. The rueda couple scale – “expressions in conversation”
You’ll appreciate the rueda couple as the ‘wheel within the wheel’ providing the internal dynamic of the larger wheel
We help you feel and understand the circular energy of rueda at the couple level
You’ll learn how to leave room in your dancing to let your partner ‘speak’
We help you listen to what your partner has to say
You’ll understand the purpose of a move and the meaning of a call

3. The Rueda de Casino scale – “an epic tale”
We’ll play with the building-blocks of rueda de casino
We’ll delve the properties of a mass-coordinated activity
What is good quality?
We build resilience: ‘When things do go wrong, how do we cope with it? How can we enjoy it?’
You’ll learn how to keep the rueda open to invite the participation of on-lookers

Eşref Ulaş
Loo Yeo