By David Bowen
As a country in the Atlantic Ocean that is zoned as part of the Caribbean and where there was a strong connection to the slave trade, it is quite natural that our local folk dance has its birth in the rhythms and movements of Africa. Our dance culture is peppered with Afro Caribbean dance steps and sounds that developed through the fusion of African movement and rhythms along with European folk music and dance steps.
Shay Shay is the name we call our local dance. Although the origin of the word is obscure, there is some evidence that it’s a corruption of the North American Square Dance term, ‘Sa-shay’, which means, ‘to walk in an ostentatious yet casual manner, typically with exaggerated movements of the hips and shoulders’.
Shay Shay for a long time was never done openly. It took place behind closed doors, away from the eyes of children. It was only for grown folks. Its moves were centred around the rhythm and music of the Ripsaw band, also known as Rake & Scrape. Rhythms that inspired the moves came from instruments like the accordion, the acoustic or box guitar, the grever or the grater, the shakers or maracas, the harmonica or the comb and the goat and cow skin drums. The main instrument in the band is the carpenters saw. This saw is scraped with a piece of metal, usually a knife, to produce the unique music that is knows as Turks & Caicos Ripsaw. When the saw is scraped, bent and struck by a master saw player like Earl ‘Diamond’ Forbes, it is said to make the dancers hips ‘loose like the neck of a goose’.
The use of the hip in dancing is a common African tradition where the pelvis is celebrated as the centre of the body. This is where life springs from. It is sacred. However in the Caribbean, this has evolved into the not so sacred and popular ‘wining’ that involves serious gyrations of the pelvis with lots of emphasis of the hips and buttocks and is sometimes seen as overtly sexual and suggestive. In 1991, the popular Soca song, Dollar Wine by Colin Lucas, brought wining to the main stream tourism market. It became a tourist anthem that was sung and performed in hotels, clubs and native shows right across the Caribbean region.
Maypole dance was also quite popular throughout the Turks and Caicos islands especially in Salt Cay. Since the 80’s, it was in decline but have started to make a comeback from 2001 due to the work by the Department of Culture which spare headed Maypole dance workshops in schools in Grand Turk and Providenciales.
Cultural dance troupes and performing groups like Barbara Johnson’s, Turks and Caicos Folklore Explores and the Breezy Beach Dancers headed by talented Blue Hills resident, Sivil Dean-Morgan, have been showcasing Maypole dance at hotels and local festivals. Exciting performances and exhibitions by The Breezy
Beach Dancers at the weekly Thursday Night Fish Fry has also been a huge hit, keeping the dance culture going.
Other Turks & Caicos dance steps are the Shati, which is popular in the island of Salt Cay, the Conch Style of Middle and North Caicos and the Heel & Toe and Mash da Roach steps native to Grand Turk and South Caicos. Merengue, pronounced locally as ‘Maranga’ or ‘Marengi’, is also a fairly popular dance style that comes to us from the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
All in all, Shay Shay, and dancing in general, is about expressing yourself and having fun. So the next time you hear the rhythm of a Ripsaw Band be sure to ‘shake your leg’, ‘yuk up ya body, ‘wine ya hips’ and ‘work up a sweat’ as you Shay Shay the night away.
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