Jan 15 /Indigenous Dance / Areito: Origin - The Circle
Unit: Indigenous Dance
Theme: The Areito
I
Introduction
The areito was the dance practiced by the indigenous Caribbean men and women. It was a complex ritual in which dance was just the vehicle to connect with the spirit world, create a sense of community and control the forces of nature. We will use the areito as an example of a dance-ritual from the Neolithic, in our continent, that was practiced by Taino communities. It was described by Spanish chroniclers and we intend in this course to recreate its performance in the subjunctive mood. We will also analyze the areito performed by Puerto Rican communities, as an act of restoration, and the Cordon dance performed in the eastern part of Cuba as part of living culture.
II
Learning Objectives
- Introduction to the student's research
- Understand the meaning of areito
- Explain the importance of areito
- Gain an awareness of the mechanics of the dance
- Experience the five ceremonial stages of the dance
- Reflect on the work done in class
III
Main Lesson
1
a. Introduction to student's research.
b. Write
a brief introduction where you explain how this independent study course will fit into your own research.
-------------------
2
Five Interesting Facts About the Taino and Caribs
3
"Mysteries of the Caribbean: Exploring Taíno Mythology in Puerto Rico"
4
c) Concept of the areito according to Diana Taylor
The Archive and the Repertoire
- Introduction, page xviii (last paragraph) - xix, paragraphs
- Page 4, last paragraph
- Page 8, first paragraph
- Page 14, last paragraph till page 15
link:https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Archive_and_the_Repertoire/5yHpwSwQq2QC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Museum+and+the+Repertoire&printsec=frontcover
4
d) Concept of the areito according to Maynard
Taino Areyto - Ceremonial Dance by Dr. Tekina-eiru Maynard (2007)
https://www.prfdance.org/taino.areyto.htm
5
Translation of Guerra's Text (Page 9 - 10)
To intern the pre-hispanic world of the dance we must travel through their diverse phases of development. for that we will start with the manifestations of the Tainos from the Antilles already in their Neolithic level. We will start with its Arawak trunk, who came from the continent as we have mentioned before. Tainos had their most important settlements in Cuba, after displacing or enslaving other more primitive groups, the so called Ciboneyes, who were in the paleolithic. They lived in caves and eventually took refuge in the more distant western region of the island.
Fernando Ortiz, who has done a study of the ceremonial life of the indigenous people in Cuba, established that the maximum Taino expression of the musical and poetic arts was the areito, which was a combination of music, chant, dance and pantomime applied to religious liturgies, magic rituals, epic narrations, tribal stories and the great expressions of collective will. As we see, the areito, Antillean term that the Spaniard learned from the Tainos themselves, was much more than a religious ceremony. Using it as starting point, they extended it too other transcendent contexts of everyday life, such as the maintenance of its oral traditions in the chants, the entertaining expressions of profanity, the funerals, the weddings and even, as we will see later, in its collective protests and the preparation of rebellions.
More than defining a specific action, the term [areito] seems to describe a type of generic collective activity of transcendence in which intervened all the cultural elements: music and its instruments, the chant and the literary texts and dance, which were all led by a strong physical activity. On these occasions eating and drinking until being drunk was accompanied by wearing their best feathers, decorative paintings in their faces and other parts of their bodies. All of it constituted an expression of their out-most aesthetic taste in terms of personally showing off. There are included here the devil's masks they use to wear, according to the conqueror's descriptions, which Ortiz limits to the funeral or initiation areitos, following the habits and customs of other Indo-American peoples.
The event used to be celebrated in the largest plaza of the villa called batey, although the indoors of the house was also used, either in the cacique's caney or in those dedicated to religious functions, depending on the character of the areito.
The great desire to dance the Tainos had, got the attention of historians from the beginning of the discovery. As expressed by Ortiz, without a doubt, with all the muscles in their bodies and not only with their legs, (and complementing the same author, based on a citation from Las Casas), jumping a thousand times, and making gesture.
It is well known the strong expression of primitive dance in which the dance incorporates the surrounding universe to reproduce its inner images in the surrounding space. Recurring to all types of physical action, representing the conjuring elements, against the earth and the powers that inhabit it, or with the air and the transparent and volatile beings that go across it and live in it. On the other hand, the convulsive and static movement are characteristics, on occasions, of the dance in these stages of civilization in movements that are "tense, animalistic, rude, and without conventional grace, brutal and threatening. In other occasions, they are full of religious unction.
If we follow the valuable source of information given by Las Casas, and offered by Ortiz, we will find the choreographic guidelines of the areito in its multiple modalities of acting: dancing lose and holding hands, holding arm to arm, single file, in circles, coming and going runs, in an arch, angular, forward and backwards as if dancing a counter-step, promenading, jumping and turning. Then he adds, it was a matter of seeing their rhythm, in their voices and their steps, because 300 or 400 men got together, the arms of some over the shoulders of others. He remarks on the collective synchrony of the choreographic movement, as they emphasized: dancing and jumping and singing all together, with so much rhythm and order that their voices and jumps and torso movements looked like one voice with the jumps and movement of only one body.
This element of uniformity is a well known characteristic of a religious ritual, in which exists the consideration that if someone makes a mistake, he/she wrongs the ceremonial by interfering in the attraction of the benefit forces that they were trying to attract. Whoever made a mistake was exposed to punishment for attempting against the efficacy of the event, leading to, in some extreme cases, to execute those who committed the infraction at the very moment of the transgression by armed guards hunters of the violators of the ritual.
6
e) Origin and formation of the dance based on Article by J. L. Morejon
- Origin
- The Circle
IV
A Note to Remember
Part
of what performance and performance studies allow us to do, then, is
take seriously the repertoire of embodied practices as an important
system of knowing and transmitting knowledge. (Taylor 26)
V
Case Studies
Miguel A. Sagué-Machiran (Sobaoko Koromo), a native of Cuba, is an artist and retired as an elementary and preschool teacher in Pennsylvania. He is chief beike of the Caney Indian Spiritual Circle. He grew up steeped in the rich hybrid tradition of the
Caney Circle Healing Dance. Contemporary participants of the Taino
Resurgence Movement have adopted portions of the Cuban Cordon Dance,
purged it of its syncretic Christian and Spiritist elements as a
recovered aspect of their ancient culture and have integrated it into
their current ceremonial practices. See bellow examples of how areito
practices are still present in other regions of the continent.
(00:10:20)
VI
Discussion Questions
1.
Based on the readings and the videos above, summarize your ideas about
the origin, importance and mechanics of the areito dance.
2. Why is the study of the areito an important epistemological frame when trying to understand a dance-ritual ?
VII
Activity
Experience the main steps of the areito dance.
3. Post a written reflection of your experience learning the main step of the areito dance on Discussion Board.
------------------------
VIII
Glossary
- areito
- embodied knowledge
- epistemology
IX
Sources
Taylor, Diana (2003). The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Duke University Press
Morejon, Jorge Luis (2018). From the Areíto to the Cordon: indigenous healing dances. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença
Taino Areyto - Ceremonial Dance by Dr. Tekina-eiru Maynard (2007) https://www.prfdance.org/taino.areyto.htm'
Comments
Post a Comment