CaribSeek Kaleidoscope | Migrated Rhythm: The Tambú of Curaçao by Rene V. Rosalia

African Elements within the Dance
As stated earlier, song, music, and dance form a close-knit trinity in African forms of expression. In Africa people dance not only for pleasure and enjoyment, but also for other more important reasons. They dance to express feelings of pain, anger, despair, to conspire, or to invoke something. The dance has a particular social function. There are men’s dances for special occasions, for example, and dances for children and youths. An important group of dances are the ceremonial dances. There are dances for the initiation of young men, on the occasion of births, deaths and marriages, and when people are sick. Other dance themes are the preparation for hunting and fighting battles and the celebration when the seed has been sown. The special character of African dance and its close links with the people in everyday real-life situations is well expressed in the choice of drums, the way they are played and the use of attributes such as masks, rattles and such like. The symbolic aspect plays a more important role than the aesthetic. The dance is linked to particular actions, places and times. Certain ritual dances can only be performed on a particular day, time, or occasion. The agricultural dances take place in the sowing and harvesting seasons. Battle dances were performed in wartime.

One can speak of ’total dance’ in which the whole body dances. In music we speak of polyrhythm. In an analogy we might speak of ’poly-movement’ in dance. Different parts of the body move in their own way while the totality of movements still form an entity. Some dances concentrate on a particular part of the body. There are dances, for example, in which the movements concentrate exclusively around the hips, others concentrate on the belly region. Leaping dances are those in which the legs play the most important role. In most African dances people dance separately. The man does not usually hold the woman when they dance in pairs. Mixed dancing only takes place in a few ceremonial dances. Despite the fact that people dance apart, the expression is nonetheless a joint one. But within this unity there is still a certain element of individualism, of personal perception. This is the case when the dancers lose themselves in the dance without thought of their fellow-dancers at particular moments of the mutual experience.

The Tambú Dance: a Pelvic Dance
Tambú is danced both in pairs and individually. In the mixed performance the man and woman do not touch each other. Both men and women can dance individually.

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The tambú is a pelvic dance, so-called because the most prominent movement begins with the pelvis. This is either a rolling, swaying or jerking motion. The movements of the buttocks, concentrated on the back of the pelvis, are extremely important. They are enhanced by slightly bending the knees and stamping the heels. The powerful, aggressive thumb sound resonates, as it were, in the abdomen and makes that part of the body of eminent importance for contact between the dancer, the thumb and the supernatural. The higher notes of the chapi have more influence on the upper region of the trunk and the head and provide a sort of balance. The slightly bent knees facilitate the rolling or swaying hip movements. At first sight it appears as if the footwork is only a shuffling movement, but there is also a light, continual stamping of the heels as they move from one place to another. Stamping the feet is a universal phenomenon which Africans, however, perform in different ways and with a great deal of rhythmic ingenuity.(12) The arms move freely.

Women sometimes place the hands on the hips and the men sometimes cross them behind their back. When the dancer stretches the arms above the head during the dance, it is a sign of the intensity of the experience, of great joy and happiness, of a trance-like fulfillment and an inner state of harmony.

Rhythmic accompaniment of dance.
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Handclapping

Heel stamping

It is very important to note that the underlying theme is not determined by the part of the body on which the dance is based. White European colonists’ judgements that the tambú is a sexual dance because the movements are mainly around the hips and pelvis were erroneous. The settlers from Western Europe interpreted the pelvic movement as an activity belonging exclusively to mating behavior. In this sense all Afro- Caribbean and African pelvic dances were sexual, voluptuous and obscene. Referring to the final development of the fertility concept, namely the hermaphrodite dance, which was found in primitive Greek cultures, the Nubians of north-east Africa and the Altai-Turks, Sachs said: "The white races are often scandalized by the ’shamelessness’ of such dancing." The words they use to express their reaction – ’indecent’, ’licentious’, ’obscene’, however, are not objective. For the primitives, namely, it is not a question of sensation or enjoyment, but a question of life and oneness with nature.(13) Dancing has a social function and fulfils such an important place and role within African and Caribbean tradition that it is impossible to think of these cultures without it.

Conclusion
Tambú is not just dancing, neither is it limited to singing and music. Tambú is life itself. It is an element of African belief which spread with slavery throughout the entire Caribbean region. African religion is life itself and therefore cannot be regarded as being separate from the economic, the cultural, and the social. Tambú music offers an opportunity for emotional expression, enjoyment, entertainment, communication, physical recreation, social control, preserving of social institutions, and observance of religious rites. The fact that tambú fulfils these functions means that the music makes a contribution to the continuity and stability of culture and the integration of society. Nketia (14) supports this view when he states that ’music thus brings a renewal of tribal solidarity’, while Merriam(15) lays the emphasis on the power of the music to unite people: "Every society has occasions signaled by music which draw its members together and reminds them of their unity."

Notes:

Hoetink, 1971, p. 69.
Wassing, 1960, p. 1.
Merriam, 1959.
Van Kol, 1904.
Bilby, 1985, p. 12.
Nketia, 1989, p. 26.
Brusse, 1969, p. 93.
Waterman, 1952, p. 207-218.
Brathwaite, 1970, p. 21.
Wassing, 1960, p. 4.
Jones, 1972, p. 118.
Ortiz, 1981, p. 218.
Sachs, 1969, p. 105.
Nketia, 1958, p. 43.
Merriam, 1964, p. 227.

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