On 9 November, I took part in the March of Resilience here on Yale’s campus. A description of the event on Facebook stated the following: “This is not a protest; it 's an interruption. Leave class, skip section, reschedule your meeting--we need each other now.” Over one thousand students, professors, and administrators took part in this march across Yale’s campus whose path began at the Afro-American Cultural Center and trudged along next to the other three cultural centers on campus before finally ending on Cross Campus in front of Sterling Memorial Library. The march culminated there on Cross Campus with several extremely moving and heartfelt speeches and artistic expressions (a close friend of mine wrote a poem, a Native American performance
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From my experiences, this is much more a problem in the United States than it was in West Africa where I grew up. It makes sense; people fear rejection and nobody wants to make a fool of themselves. However, I think a shift of mindset is needed to mend this problem. To me, it seems like the people who say they don’t dance or are afraid of dancing may be extrinsically motivated rather than intrinsically motivated. One thing that this class has solidified for me is that when dancing, it is important to be in touch with your own body and effectively to be dancing in order to express yourself rather than to impress others. The best dancers in performances and parties I have been to have consistently been the people who look like they are having the most fun or enjoying themselves the most, likely because they are dancing for themselves rather than to impress the audience. Another observation of dance in American society is that it is seen as non-masculine. As someone who grew up in a culture where everyone from the youngest babe to the most grey-haired elder dances, this boggles my mind. I think that this also points towards self-consciousness, fear of derision, and a lack of comfort in one’s skin. In Shaka, I’ve been the only male member of the group for almost my entire time at Yale; it has been difficult to get men to join, maybe because Polynesian dance like hula are primarily portrayed in the media with female dancers even though men have performed hula and other Polynesian dance for
From my experiences, this is much more a problem in the United States than it was in West Africa where I grew up. It makes sense; people fear rejection and nobody wants to make a fool of themselves. However, I think a shift of mindset is needed to mend this problem. To me, it seems like the people who say they don’t dance or are afraid of dancing may be extrinsically motivated rather than intrinsically motivated. One thing that this class has solidified for me is that when dancing, it is important to be in touch with your own body and effectively to be dancing in order to express yourself rather than to impress others. The best dancers in performances and parties I have been to have consistently been the people who look like they are having the most fun or enjoying themselves the most, likely because they are dancing for themselves rather than to impress the audience. Another observation of dance in American society is that it is seen as non-masculine. As someone who grew up in a culture where everyone from the youngest babe to the most grey-haired elder dances, this boggles my mind. I think that this also points towards self-consciousness, fear of derision, and a lack of comfort in one’s skin. In Shaka, I’ve been the only male member of the group for almost my entire time at Yale; it has been difficult to get men to join, maybe because Polynesian dance like hula are primarily portrayed in the media with female dancers even though men have performed hula and other Polynesian dance for