Please Don't Stop the Music!!

Let me just begin this entry by saying that these girls have music in their blood.

For the first time, we played music in our theatre classroom and incorporated it into our show. We did the singing auditions yesterday, so we had already gauged who can/cannot sing. The soloists we determined are: Rosailin, Rosa Lourdes, Maria Ynez, Edileiza, and Sarah. We had a plan for who would sing which verse, all that. The song we have chosen to end the show is "Color Esperanza" by Diego Torres. I hope you can all guess what that means, but I will tell you anyways ... it means the Color of Hope. It's much prettier in Spanish, but essentially the song is about facing your fears and embracing the world with open arms, pushing yourself, filling your life with hope and love. It's really a beautiful song.

So we had them all listen to the Diego Torres song, and of course, Maria Ynez was the first to get up and begin to sing and dance. Edileiza soon followed. All of a sudden the girls had a dance -- they all seemed to know this fairly elaborate dance. Kelly and I were sitting there, bewildered, wondering who taught them this dance. We rehearsed the singing of the song for about an hour, watching it improve little by little each time. Some of the girls did not know the lyrics for their particular verse, so that proved a little difficult for them, but by the end, most of them knew it. The key now is to get them singing to the karaoke version, and give their dance/movement some sort of structure and make it perform-able for the final piece in the show.

After that encouraging, soulful bit, we moved on to our next experiment. As most of you know, dance is a huge part of the Latin-American culture, and that is certainly no exception in the Dominican Republic. These girls are literally born with the ability to shake it. By the age of 15 or 16, which is when we have them, they are experts. We want to have a piece of the show where they can show off their dance, because it certainly denotes a kind of sexual power that women have here. So we began to play "I Know You Want Me" by Pitbull, at their request, and immediately the dynamic of the room changed. The girls began to cheer and shout. They jumped out of their seats and began to get down and dirty. Immediately. It was the fastest turn-around I have ever seen. And let me say, as much as I had to avert my eyes for some of their moves, I was impressed by them. By their spirit, I would say. By the way the music literally pounds through their veins, and they just go for it. There is no holding back with these girls. You turn on music, and they will dance. They will dance like there's no tomorrow. And that is what we will have them do in the show.

Just to give you an idea of the extent to which these girls go all out for their dancing... Maria Ynez, who is our resident diva/class clown, was dancing. She was shaking her hips so hard, so vigorously, getting down so low, that the tiny little plaid shorts she was wearing ripped at the seam. For the rest of the day she hiked her backpack around the back of her shorts. It was hysterical. Another Maria Ynez story, for your amusement ... After lunch, we go to the pool on Tuesdays. Maria loves the pool. She raced out of lunch to the taxi, where our driver, Alvaro, was waiting. She asked him if our group could leave immediately. He replied that he had to take the younger girls to the field first, and that we would have to wait a few minutes. He continued that we would also have to leave the pool a few minutes earlier than normal because he had other girls to pick up. Maria looked amused, smiled, and then she leaned into the window, gave him the finger, and shouted "F**K YOU!" loudly. Kelly and I were super taken aback and we admonished her, laughing. She is quite the character, has a tremendous amount of the spirit I was talking about.

To conclude... Today was a great day. We saw what makes these girls passionate and fully engaged, and we plan to use that in our show. Music, music, music. Singing, dancing, they love it. It looks like we are heading towards more of a musical... a modern/experimental one, but a musical nonetheless.

So next time you hear a popular American song, just imagine these girls ... dancing so hard they rip their clothing. Just one of the ways they channel their tremendous passion, energy, and zest for life.

1, 2, 3, dale!

Anna and Kelly