6-5-06
Tinikling, or the Bamboo Dance of Death
The swearing in ceremony for our official start as Peace Corps volunteers is somewhat of a big deal. The ambassador flies in, local dignitaries and department officials attend, so naturally, Peace Corps wants it to look professional. They also want us, the trainees to present native songs and dances to the people in attendance, to show our cultural immersion. Our hub manager, Sheila, texted us to tell us to head to our hub site for dance practice one day – we went, thinking the entire Western Visayas training group would be there performing the dance with us. We were sorely mistaken. We had been chosen (or rather nominated by a complex practice of no one else wanting to do it) to dance the “tinikling,” the national dance of the Philippines involving intense skill, quick feet and a percussionists rhythm. Unfortunately we possess none of these qualities. The tinikling has four central people. Two dancers who hop in and out of two long bamboo poles, smiling and hopping, twisting in harmonious synchrony. While the dancers are busy doing that, two others are holding the bamboo poles and giving all they’ve got to snap the dancer’s feet between the poles. The beat is a speedy waltz, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. With each 1, 2 count the poles are clapped downwards to keep the beat and on number 3 they are slammed together! With this beating and snapping, the dancer’s feet are flitting in between the lightning fast blurs of bamboo, escaping punishment by a whisker’s breadth each time – at least in theory. While learning what we liked to call, the complicated bamboo dance of death, many tears were shed because careless ankles and toes were not in rhythm with the crashing poles and were curtly clipped as a reminder of the notoriously quick beat. Others were shed in anger and frustration at our having been chosen and not able to accomplish this task. Sometimes one of us would be perfectly on count and the other would mis-step or linger too long between the poles. We yelled at each other, the pole bearers got off-beat. . .disaster! After nearly 15 hours of practicing, not one time had we completed the dance perfectly. Maybe it was the idea of doing it in front of dignitaries, or even more dreaded, doing it in front of our friends – whatever it was, when we performed the dance at swearing in, by some miracle, we completed it flawlessly – a perfect performance. We were sore, tired, our feet hurt, but we had done it – completed the complicated bamboo dance of death! Everyone was so impressed and so thrilled that we had done it so well. If only they knew. . . .