Synaptic

Writing Objective: Write an essay about the time you spent in another culture other than your own.

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” ¡Paso de Sevillanas!. .. ¡pataf … ¡cruzar!…”

Sweat dribbled down my neck as I struggled to move my body into the positions ordered by our dance instructor. I had no idea when I signed up for lessons that learning to dance the Spanish folk dance, Sevillanas, was going to be so difficult. It was only 20 minutes into our first lesson, and already I was thinking that signing my life away to the Marines would have been an easier choice. At least the drill sergeants would have been less severe than our Sevillanas instructor. To make things even more difficult, my body was responding in the usual uncooperative manner it resorts to in any situation that requires coordination. Every time I attempted to appear graceful, I caught a glimpse of myself in die full-length mirrors around the walls. My arms didn’t seem to bend right, my feet never stepped in the right direction; even my build seemed wrong for this endeavor. My shoulders were too broad, my frame too big-boned: I looked nothing like those willowy Spanish girls, petite and graceful in their frilly dresses. I scowled at my reflection, gritting my teeth as I positioned myself back into the stalling position.

My friends and I had signed up to take the lessons for the traditional dance to prepare us for Dia de la Cruz, a spring festival in honor of the Holy Cross as an emblem of Christianity in Spain. While the holiday was celebrated all over Spain, we had been told that Granada was the best place lo be for it. Supposedly, the plazas of Granada were best suited for the dancing because not only were they spacious, but they were numerous and close-together, to allow for easy migrating around the city. Part of this holiday consisted of the erection of elaborately decorated crosses in all the plazas of the Granada. The other part consisted of the celebration, the dancing in these plazas throughout the whole day and late into the night We had seen demonstrations of Sevillanas performed-men and women in elaborate gypsy costumes seducing each other to the music, without even touching each other. We admired the way the women’s arms rose and fell, the wrists constantly twirling gracefully. And we loved the way it seemed to create a certain poise in the men, with their more exacting arm positions and precise footwork. It was a beautiful dance in four parts, or pasos, and it was one aspect of Spanish culture that we weren’t going to miss.

The music swelled throughout the hall and my comrades and I tried frantically to find a beat that was slow enough to out I liking. To the untrained ear, Sevillanas music is seemingly uniform. . . without real rhythm or lyricism. However, the Spanish know (and we soon learned) that each song has its own distinct rhythm and mood. It is not always possible to find the beat simply by listening to the music–its rhythm must be felt and interpreted through the dance that accompanies it through its four verses. While one song can be sad and sensual, the next could easily be joyful and raucous; and the same dance accompanies both. At this moment however, our first lesson, we had no idea how to tell the difference. We did not have ‘feel’ for the music yet. This was a fact that did not go unnoticed by our instructor.

“STOP!” she cried, starting the music over and joining us on the floor. As the music started again she began clapping, her hands raised even with her right ear as her hips swayed rhythmically, a cigarette pursed in her brightly painted lips. She demonstrated the paso de Sevillanas, the foundation of the dance, and we attempted to imitate her graceful style. That part seemed easy enough. All it really required was for each person in the pair to take a slight step toward the other, then step together with the other foot, and then step back. We completed the maneuver like pros and, satisfied with our progress on this basic movement, she told us to go ahead and add the other steps. I looked at my partner, Tammy, in alarm. I was positive I was going to do something wrong and mess us both up.

Sure enough, we weren’t even halfway through the first paso de Sevillanas when the music stopped again and we all froze in position. “¡Tu!” she screeched, pointing at me with her newly lit cigarette, “What do you think you are doing there?’U She started to walk toward me. Oh no, I thought, what- had I done? I could feel my face start to redden as she approached me, her face expressionless. The Dona was about 50 years old but moved with the energy of a 20-year-old. Her sleek black haii* was pulled back tightly into a ponytail that hung down her back. Her thin lips were painted a garish red which emphasized the wideness of her mouth, but not enough to overcome her huge, almond-shaped, Spanish eyes. Those eyes narrowed and glimmered as she stopped directly in front of me, taking a drag on the cigarette. I towered about a foot over her, yet she terrified me with a glance. She repealed her question, bellowing, “¡¿Que haces?!”

“Uh. . .” I stammered, looking desperately at my friends, trying to notice how their positions differed from mine. Suddenly it occurred to me, and I looked accusingly at my raised left arm. I knew perfectly well that she had just shown us moments before that in the paso de Sevillanas position, the left arm is down. I quickly lowered it, attempting a sheepish, innocent smile at the Dona.

She continued to gaze at me gravely, probably trying to decide whether or not to humiliate me anymore. Then she placed the cigarette in her pursed lips and turned away, barking something that sounded like “/Otra vex!” around the cigarette before going over and stalling the music again. We were starting over yet again.

“¡Izquierda! ¡Derecha! ¡VELTAP!” she continued to scream at us for the rest of the two-hour lesson as we all wildly scrambled to step with first our left, then our right foot and do the quick turns in time to the music. By the end of the lesson, we were all exhausted when she stopped the music for good. We flopped down onto the hardwood floor of the dance studio, breathless and defeated. She stood in the middle of us, her chin slightly raised, a slightly amused look in her eyes as she surveyed the damage. “¡Hasta la semana que eiene!” she said in that same loud voice, waving her cigarette at us in a gesture of good-bye. I couldn’t believe my ears. She didn’t seriously think we would come back the next week, did she?

But we did go back, week after week, until we had all four pasos down and could do them in our sleep. Over those weeks we became accustomed to the Dona’s screeching and yelling, and by the end we had even established a kind of relationship with her. We learned to read the expressions on her face and knew which ones meant she was frustrated with us, which ones meant she was really laughing at us on the inside, and which ones meant that we had pleased her.

And then May 2 finally arrived-La Dia de la Cruz. Armed with our Sevillanas lessons, we danced in the streets with all the Spaniards like pros. In our minds, anyway. We had decided long ago that Spaniards were born with some kind of rhythm that we Americans just didn’t possess. I was further convinced of this point when I witnessed a three-year-old doing Sevillanas in heels in one of the plazas. We rounded a corner and there she was, her little dress floating around her as she moved in perfect rhythm, an angelic smile on her tiny face.

Despite our small inadequacies, we danced through the afternoon and into the evening, ambling from plaza to plaza. The Spaniards welcomed us in each plaza pleased to dance with the students who had come to study their culture. The men who asked me to dance with them didn’t make any comments when I made mistakes-they would simply smile at the end of the song, kissing my hand and thanking me, and then disappear into the crowd. As the day wore on I realized my mistakes didn’t even matter-those who did notice were too drunk on wine and the magic of the day to even care.

Around two in the morning we abandoned the city plazas and stumbled on aching feet through the narrow cobbled streets of the Albaicm, an old neighborhood on the edge of Granada. We found an abandoned plaza that had a nice view of the Alhambra, the old Moorish fortress that overlooks the city, and perched ourselves on a wall to rest. I stared at the stone walls of the Alhambra, imagining how the kings and queens of the past could have sat up there listening to the same music we heard at that moment. Suddenly I could think of no better place in the entire world. Spain had become home to me. I was no longer there to study—how could I after living that wonderful day? Somebody popped open a bottle of wine and we passed it around. I listened to the folk music drifting up from the city below us grow fainter as more of the people struggled home to bed. The festival was ending, but we stayed in that plaza the rest of the night, gazing at the illuminated Alhambra and waiting for the sun to come up and announce the arrival of the new day.