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for the birth of the Son of God, who came to take away, by his death,
the sins of the world.
America was not the only country that had been influenced
by Africa in dancing; From the Moors it was that Spain first received
that dance now so peculiar to it, the Fandango, which is nothing
else than the Chica, under a more 'decent' form, the climate and
other circumstances not permitting the performance of this latter
with all its native concomitants. The origin of this dance it is
very difficult to discover; but every thing in it seems to be the
effect of a burning climate, and ardent constitutions. To dance
it publicly was not allowed this side the West Indies even the Congo
Square business was suppressed at one time; 1843, says tradition.
In America, namely Louisianna, this dance
was passionately admired among the Creoles (New Orleans),
who enthusiastically adopted it on its introduction among them (around
1803). These Creole women would stand firmly in one place and Shimmy
and Shake their booty all the while, undulating the body and handkerchief,
held by the tip ends waving above her head. The male would move
in the same way but with more aggression, showing his excitement
and stamina, sorta moving in a stalking pattern, circling around
her. The contortions of the encircling crowd were strange and terrible,
the din was hideous. Even the musicians song was always a grossly
personal satirical ballad like the Calenda, and the drums would
be drumming away any thoughts of the day.
Carlos Blasis writes in 1830:
The Chica is danced to the sound of any instrument whatever,
but to one certain kind of tune, which is in a manner consecrated
to it, and of which the movement is extremely rapid. The woman holds
one end of a handkerchief, or the two sides of her apron, and the
chief art on her part consists in agitating the lower part of the
loins, whilst the rest of the body remains almost motionless. A
dancer now approaches her with a rapid bound, flies to her, retires,
darts forward a-fresh, and appears to conjure her to yield to the
emotions which she seems so forcibly to feel. When the Chica is
danced in its most expressive character, there is in the gestures
and movements of the two dancers, a certain appearance more easily
understood than described. The scene offers to the eye, all that
is lascivious, all that is voluptuous. It is a kind of contest,
wherein every trick of love, and every means of its triumph, are
set in action. Fear, hope, disdain, tenderness, caprice, pleasure,
refusals, flight, delirium, despair, all is there expressed, and
the inhabitants of Paphos, would have honoured the inventor of it
as a divinity. I will not attempt to say what impressions the sight
of this dance must occasion, when executed with all the voluptuousness
of which it is susceptible. It animates every feature, it awakens
every sensibility, and would even fire the imagination of old age.
The Chica is now banished from the balls of the white
women of South America, being far too offensive to decency; and
is only sometimes performed in a few circles, where the small number
of spectators encourage the dancer. At Cairo, where there are no
theatres, there are a sort of actors, or leapers, who go about to
private houses, and represent various scenic performances, wherein
the most licentious and obscene attitudes bear a strong resemblance
to the Chica, and the ancient mimics. Many of the Greek and Romandances
may be compared to the Chica and Fandango, and especially those
practised at the time of the decline of dancing in both nations,
when this art naturally became an object of contempt among men of
taste and morality. I am almost inclined to believe that the Chica
owes its origin to some of the ancient dances. Greece, so fertile
in productions of every kind, and which gave birth to Socrates and
Diogenes, Phocion, and Alcibiades, Homer, and Aristophanes, Agoracrites,
Cleophanes, Callipides, all of most extraordinary, but opposite,
talents, Greece, I think the most likely nation to have created
this voluptuous dance. The dance of the Angrismene, usually performed
at festivals in honour of Venus, and still very common among the
modern Greeks, may bear me out in my opinion.... END. |
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