Now it seems the dancing has finally been subject to the much needed inspection it rightly deserves with the punctual creation and release of It's All About Dancing: A Jamaican Dance-U-Mentary by Director Jason "Jay Will" Williams and producer Carleene Samuels. The film, a product of Penalty Recordings in conjunction with Fine Gold Productions, boasts the bragging rights that come with being the "the first official DVD to capture the vibrant and sometimes outrageous culture of the Jamaican dancehall". The collaboration between Williams and Samuels has resulted in a documentary that invites dancers, artists, and important Dancehall personalities to the same table for a rich and memorable Sunday Dinner.
For so long Jamaica has been synonymous with tourism and Reggae. The former, has made Jamaica--a seasonal escape for western tourists looking for a haven in its beaches, waterways, and at times, caricatured "natives"--one of the more recognized landscapes in the world. The latter has made Jamaicans and Jamaican culture an easy target for both reverence and mockery in the form of "no problem mons", "iries", and "everything is gonna be alrights" throughout the world. And for so long, I have wondered how much longer would topless Rasta men in roughly cuffed pants and Bob Marley tees with wildly swinging locs act as the iconographic cultural ambassadors of this small island to the rest of the world.
The resurgence of Dancehall and Reggae in American pop music has been a welcomed rescue from the mundane white couple swinging on a beach in a hammock under a palm tree, coconut drinks in tow. Now, instead of watching commercials with a band playing in the distance of a tropical gazebo, people watch music videos with Elephant Man and Junior Gong. Or Sean Paul and I-Wayne, depending on your preference. The renewed interest in Jamaica's music as a profitable cultural export has given people a choice of predetermined pre-digested material.All the buzz created by this seemingly new music-that has actually been going strong for over two decades, has given way to a new craze; now, not only is it all about the music, its also all about the dancing.
Remember that summer dancehall videos set television screens on fire? Both Elephant Man and Sean Paul dominated MTV and BET with videos that had tight lyrics and fiyaah choreography. They brought us back to summers of World-A-Dance and Bogle Dance. They had Jamaicans and non-Jamaicans alike trying to swing legs out and up before bringing them back in again like that girl in the close-up of "Gimmie Di Light". These new videos publicized an aspect of dancehall that was secondary previously, and openly displayed it to outside eyes and bodies.
Dancing in Jamaica is as historically pertinent as its music. People did it easily to Mento, and worked vigorously to the Ska, slow-cooked and heated it up to Rub-A-Dub, and bounced to Rock(-)steady. The music created the dancing and the dancing refined the music, together they birthed a culture sophisticated beyond its years. When Dancehall first stole center stage, it was in the midst of political turmoil and economic instability. Combine these two factors with people anxious for escape-fixed or momentary, and you have music that is for more than just recreation- you have music that lives and breathes its own way of being.
Subculture is always subject to fluctuations in its parent culture. Thus, its easy to connect the separating of genders in Dancehall's early stages to the distancing of men and women in Kingston. Women were becoming stronger economically while men were becoming more hostile toward each other in politically motivated turf warfare. And although they left most of the tensions of ghetto life at the entrance to the dancehalls, elements still crept in with them. So the women danced and paraded their new found wealth together while the men surrounded them, for protection and gazing. Dancehall quickly became a place for flashy displays of the material wealth and social standing, gained or hoped, for in the ghettoes; and it was not long before the dancing reflected such sentiments.
Jamaican dancing went from men and women closing in on each other to Jamaican men and women showing off what they had or could perform apart. Songs celebrated women patting up and winding down while men were congratulated for straight backed toughness and stamina. All while under the cover of air heavy with sound, hands lifted like Sunday daytime service, only these hands were praising a different set of virtues.
These were the conditions in which a man like Gerald "Bogle" Levy rose to prominence. Bogle took what was already happening--people throwing their possessions and abilities at each other in the language of excited legs and arguing arms--and formalized it. He took bits and pieces of movement and sound and crafted something totally new; something that looked back at motion passed down from slaves and into the future and the promises within it, while staying current with the pressures of the realities when the dance ends in a few daylight hours. He took the modelin' of foreign goods, combined it with the sass of limbs only Jamaican landscapes could inspire, and choreographed something real, relevant, and truly reflective.
Scanning the time since Bogle's timely explosion, and past his untimely death, Dancehall has grown beyond belief. The subculture is now so advanced that it has gone from regenerating an underground economy from money generated in the larger culture to creating and recreating its own flow of capital nationally and internationally. It stands on its own feet and even with the dangers of encroaching western proft-seekers, has managed to remain an entity onto itself and an authentic product of the streets.
The music has been looked at, listened to, vilified and revered by people throughout the world. Now it seems the dancing has finally been subject to the much needed inspection it rightly deserves with the punctual creation and release of It's All About Dancing: A Jamaican Dance-U-Mentary by Director Jason "Jay Will" Williams and producer Carleene Samuels. The film, a product of Penalty Recordings in conjunction with Fine Gold Productions, boasts the bragging rights that come with being the "the first official DVD to capture the vibrant and sometimes outrageous culture of the Jamaican dancehall".
The collaboration between Williams and Samuels has resulted in a documentary that invites dancers, artists, and important Dancehall personalities to the same table for a rich and memorable Sunday Dinner. There's the artists--T.O.K . Mr. Vegas, Beenie Man, and Elephant Man; the dancers--John Hype, Latisha, John Hype, and numerous Dancehall Queen contestants; personalities like Tony Matterhorn and Richie Feelings. Then there's the dancing, carefully highlighted so even the person who never heard of Dancehall could understand the importance of the Willie Bounce. The smartly created film really is "an eye-catching, entertaining documentary that reveals the essence of dancehall via interviews and candid monologues, inter-spliced with improvisational dance sequences meant to school even a beginner in the moves of the dancehall".
The documentary tries to cover as many aspects of Dancehall dancing as possible. It features clips of actual dances shot on location in Jamaica; snippets of several Dancehall Queen competitions (along with interviews with contestants); long monologues of selectors, artists and producers talking about their relationship to dancers and the dances; and importantly, the views of dancers making the dances we strive to execute.
The creatively organized DVD includes many segments of interest ranging from an entire section devoted to step-by-step dance instructional, to a thoughtful and heartfelt tribute to Gerald Levy, better known as Bogle to the Dancehall world. Dancehall is refreshingly presented through the perspective and patois of Ding Dong, a dancer poised to assume Bogle's throne and then some.
Overall, the most impressive aspect of the DVD is the professionalism and commitment to documenting Jamaican dancehall. It was clear from the presentation that Jason Williams and Carleene Samuels were interested in more than just stringing up some lights and propping up a few cameras. They approached Dancehall with an eye for capturing the essence of the movement and the people behind it.
Now that It's All About Dancing: A Jamaican Dance-U-Mentary has laid a foundation for looking at Dancehall as a subculture as well as an intricate series of weighed dances, I hope the ones that follow will take it to higher levels. Now that It's All About Dancing has opened up dialogues as varied as the drive to be crowned Queen or King, the ingenious nature of the choreography, and the strange but true race relations within dancehall, it's time for the next Dancehall documentary to expose even more nuances and quirks.
© T.I. Williams
