South America is one of the most fascinating continents on Earth. It is the land of the Mayan and the Incan civilisations - two of the greatest epochs in the history of mankind. The face of this glorious land was transfigured beyond recognition by the end of the 15th Century, due to the voyages of Christopher Columbus which were funded by Queen Isabella I of Spain. It paved way for the invasion of the New World by the Spanish conquistadores and their subsequent colonisation, having far-reaching implications in the multi-faceted culture of this beautiful continent. The arrogance, the madness and the folly of the Spanish colonisers have been meticulously captured in the epic movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God by Werner Herzog, with Herzog's fiend Klaus Kinski giving an immortal performance. The Spanish conquest of indigenous peoples of the Americas resulted in exploitation of the natives who were converted into forced labour. Along with the colonisers came their dreadful diseases, most importantly small pox. It wiped out a vast majority of the natives leading to a massive labour shortage for the colonisers to cultivate their plantations. Consequently, the Spanish colonisers got involved in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
The innocent villagers from the West and Central Africa were violently captured, kidnapped and shipped to the New World, comprising of both the North and South Americas. Out there in the wilderness of both the Americas, the African villagers, who had by then become slaves, were sold as forced labourers to work in the plantations and mines of the European colonisers. Alex Haley's captivating novel Roots : The Saga of an American Family gives a profound glimpse on the history of Blacks in America. Alex Haley has colourfully fictionalised his journey to discover his genealogical roots upto his seventh generation ancestor Kunta Kinte, who was captured in Gambia and shipped to America in 1767. The slave trade flourished from the 16th to the 19th centuries, during which about 1.2 crores of Africans arrived in the New World, excluding the substantial number of people who died onboard the ships due to varied fatalities that happened during enslavement. Maafa is the term given by the Black scholars to denote the slave trade primarily of African people. In Swahili, it means the African Holocaust or the Holocaust of Enslavement.
The history of the last five centuries of both North and South Americas is a blood-soaked palimpsest. It is drenched with the blood and sweat of two different streams of highly respectable and culturally sophisticated human beings. On the one side, it comprised of the millions of native Americans of various indigenous origins including the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incans. And on the other side, it constituted more than 12 million Africans of varied ethnicities originating from Western and Central Africa. When these diverse communities started communicating with each other, with the mediation of European Modernity, newer forms of artistic expressions emerged on the horizon. From the turn of the 19th century, there was a creative effulgence across South and North Americas in all the domains of art : music, dance and literature. And one such creative zenith was accomplished by modern civilisation with the emergence of a dance form called Tango.
Tango is a modern dance form which originated in the middle of the 19th century in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. It is said to have been shaped by the dance rituals of Candomble cult, which emerged from the synthesis of some of the native Brazilian religions with the Yoruba religion of the African diaspora from Nigeria. During the Candomble ceremony, the Supreme Being called as Olorun sends the venerated spirit of the ancestors called Orixa, embedded in the anima or the soul of Nature. The Orixa would possess those who participate in the dance ritual, make them go into a trance and heal their souls. During the 19th century, the Candomble was banned by the Catholic Church and was even criminalised by some governments. No wonder, artistic creativity has always been an anathema for any organised religion and the modern nation-state.
Tango is a social dance which has its roots in the working-class slums of Buenos Aires. The music of Tango is derived from the fusion of various genres of music from Europe. To Tango is to walk with a partner in music. Tango is essentially to dance with one's partner with a rhythm in the body movement from head to toe. It is a silent conversation between the two bodies in unison. Tango happens when the eyes and the bodies speak to each other. Without any word or sound. The basic elements of Tango are : the embrace, the walk and the music. The styles of the Tango are varied from place to place. But the underlying themes of any good Tango are its playfulness and musicality. The axes of two bodies merge into one another as they dance in love. It is the most intimate artistic expression which depicts the yearning for communion between two bodies, mind and soul. When two beings who are intimately in love starts to Tango, the ancestors would appear on the sky to watch it with joy. The spirit of the Orixa would be beckoned by the God Olorun to bless the loving souls to confluence with each other..
(You Tube shared above : A Tango composition from one of the greatest 100 movies of 20th Century, as per my rating : Tango, directed by the Spanish director Carlos Saura in 1998. The cinematography is by Vittorio Storaro, a master in the art of capturing shadow and light.)
The history of the last five centuries of both North and South Americas is a blood-soaked palimpsest. It is drenched with the blood and sweat of two different streams of highly respectable and culturally sophisticated human beings. On the one side, it comprised of the millions of native Americans of various indigenous origins including the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incans. And on the other side, it constituted more than 12 million Africans of varied ethnicities originating from Western and Central Africa. When these diverse communities started communicating with each other, with the mediation of European Modernity, newer forms of artistic expressions emerged on the horizon. From the turn of the 19th century, there was a creative effulgence across South and North Americas in all the domains of art : music, dance and literature. And one such creative zenith was accomplished by modern civilisation with the emergence of a dance form called Tango.
Tango is a modern dance form which originated in the middle of the 19th century in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. It is said to have been shaped by the dance rituals of Candomble cult, which emerged from the synthesis of some of the native Brazilian religions with the Yoruba religion of the African diaspora from Nigeria. During the Candomble ceremony, the Supreme Being called as Olorun sends the venerated spirit of the ancestors called Orixa, embedded in the anima or the soul of Nature. The Orixa would possess those who participate in the dance ritual, make them go into a trance and heal their souls. During the 19th century, the Candomble was banned by the Catholic Church and was even criminalised by some governments. No wonder, artistic creativity has always been an anathema for any organised religion and the modern nation-state.
Tango is a social dance which has its roots in the working-class slums of Buenos Aires. The music of Tango is derived from the fusion of various genres of music from Europe. To Tango is to walk with a partner in music. Tango is essentially to dance with one's partner with a rhythm in the body movement from head to toe. It is a silent conversation between the two bodies in unison. Tango happens when the eyes and the bodies speak to each other. Without any word or sound. The basic elements of Tango are : the embrace, the walk and the music. The styles of the Tango are varied from place to place. But the underlying themes of any good Tango are its playfulness and musicality. The axes of two bodies merge into one another as they dance in love. It is the most intimate artistic expression which depicts the yearning for communion between two bodies, mind and soul. When two beings who are intimately in love starts to Tango, the ancestors would appear on the sky to watch it with joy. The spirit of the Orixa would be beckoned by the God Olorun to bless the loving souls to confluence with each other..
(You Tube shared above : A Tango composition from one of the greatest 100 movies of 20th Century, as per my rating : Tango, directed by the Spanish director Carlos Saura in 1998. The cinematography is by Vittorio Storaro, a master in the art of capturing shadow and light.)
