I laugh sometimes to think about back in the day when I first moved here. The criticism of my dancing was that it was, like me, too stiff. Ironic considering that no one who has ever seen me move would use the word stiff.
Im watching that perreo video again and thinking about my little one giggling at me the other day. I was sitting here with 2 books on my head and walking around and even bending. She thought it was punny. The friend who immortalized me as “La Reina del Merengue” commented on it one day when we were discussing dominican merengue tipico music vs merengue bomba and I sent videos that showed how the differences in music were expressed in the dance.
How do you manage to move the upper and lower half of your body as if they were totally separate? What others saw as stiff, he saw as pretty interesting. The majority of the motion is seen from the ribcage down.The momentum is all concentrated in the hip area so the action of the upper and lower body only shows in the swing of the hips. And the motion is like a figure 8, no like a moibus strip.
Who the hell needs shoulders? LOL
Oh what the hell, Imma go off topic. I regret that people see this and can only see SEX. I am looking at the motion, the form, the undulation. Imagine a red rubber ball placed on the body and set in motion. To me, perreo is most beautiful when you can imagine a ball rolling on the persons body, and it NEVER falls off. No matter how you pop, stop, turn or move, the momentum keeps the ball rolling smoothly along its path. When I watch the hips move, I am watching the arc they draw through the air. I am watching how the motion comes up through the foot, into the hip, up the torso, goes from one hip to the other in a figure 8 and down the other leg to start over.
Im too bored to edit, off to find videos
