Sunday, February 18, 2007
Sun.star Essay: The dance
By Erma M. Cuizon
Sun.star essay
AND now the season of comical madness is here.
It’s a season for dancing and changing partners. We even also dance to it, although the main performers are out front---the UNO (with Erap’s blessing) and the Team Unity (with GMA on guard).
Will there be songs and dances and fun, as in the last election when a star ran for president?
Music stirs the spirit, takes people off the floor in a sensual turn in a dance. But in politics, it depends on what tune and what beat. Music is supposed to help give “strength to your convictions” but only in the way it seems to you, depending on where you’re coming from.
Joining a political party is keeping in step in a dance with the group, but what political party are we talking about?
Politicians join parties which are “united” time and again, called this and that, once broken a coalition or a team now, with new and old dancers to a cha-cha or samba or disco beat.
They dance in a party, within parties, which calls itself “one” party. The Team Unity has Michael, Tessie, Tito, Joker, Ralph, Ed, Mike, Prospero, Luis, Vicente, Cesar, Kiram III.
UNO has Loren, Panfilo, Chiz, Alan Peter, Noynoy, Koko, Sonia, Nikki, Antonio, and John. The “grand coalition” has two independents and they will waltz together, depending on the circumstances. As a news item says, “Villar with UNO but he’s going solo,” whatever this means. (These slots could have been Francisco Tatad’s, probably? And Ernesto Maceda, why not?
In this way, UNO would have had the original steps and swing of the Estrada belly dance.)
Why doesn’t Kiko dance the Calypso of the West Indies, in a music form that’s native to Trinidad and Tobago? It has steps that go forward and back.
Kiko and Manny could also do the samba---one step goes forward, the other backward, reverse, then forward and back. In the language of politics, these steps are called “independent” or by “guests.”
The tentative party members could do experimental dance forms after American dancer Isadora Duncan who was spontaneous in her art, and personal---the creator of the modern dance. Step anywhere in any way you want, like Gringo, but don’t lose touch of the reason why you want to be a senator. Or do exhibition dances, update the heel rhythm, snap the fingers like the gypsies did.
What about Ralph, Joker, Ed? They know their steps, they say. And they keep on talking about paninindigan, whatever this means. It would be more difficult for Tito and Tessie to explain anything but to dance to the tune they’re in, they will.
It was a caricaturish time for parties to arrive at the “perfect” and “final” choice to complete their list before the deadline, and no one was talking about platforms.
Are you in, are you out?
But the point is to become a senator again. Step forward, step back, turn around… There’s something I haven’t finished doing in the Senate, says Tito Sotto.
Now and then, things hang. Then you hear the music, is it waltz? Yes, it’s waltz. Kiram III is in. Vicente Mag-saysay, too, who
was ask-ed by GMA, it’s said, just a few days before the deadline.
In the UNO, you can’t put together Loren and Nikki, both centerstage girls, but probably they dance well together. The tango turns are fast most of the time, giving any dancer a chance to swing out mud to the next dancing couple.
Other music for a dance is off-beat. Take Antonio who led a coup so he could run for the Senate and campaign like a screen star. He could do the ballet, perhaps alone for having come from an unusual circumstance (although Gringo is trying to outdo him in his own style). In his cell, he stands in good “postural alignment,” then bends his lower leg and grasps his ankle.
What to do in a rock and roll: Body weight on the right foot, keep right knee straight. Bend left knee, point left foot to the floor.
If you want to survive the political dance, exercise. “Stand comfortably, in good belly dance posture. That means your feet should be directly below your shoulders….”
Cesar could dance to the tune of “Pangitaa gajud, inday, ang Bol-anon.”
The thing is to win, then do another dance with another partner in another time.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 18, 2007 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
