2/16-2/28
Monday was mostly pointless: all day I was calling people who didn’t answer, or stopping by to interview people who weren’t home. So it was just as well, I thought, to get away for a night. Now that I didn’t have to go away for another job talk, I was freed up to accept an earlier invitation from my friend Dario to give another kind of talk at the Instituto de Estudios Caribeños in the capital, an all-expenses-paid one-night trip. Having decided to do it on Monday, I left on Tuesday and got there just in time – a half-hour late, due to the famous Santo Domingo traffic jams.
This was an event held in preparation for the upcoming third installment of the Conference on Music, Culture, and Identity in the Caribbean. I and one other participant in the first two had been invited to talk about our research processes, in order to give ideas to those who were busy preparing their papers for April. The first speaker was a Cuban researcher now living in the DR, who had done a discography of merengue in Cuba. The interesting aspect of that research, to my mind, was how genres were assigned to the various styles: in most cases, the genre was not specified on the recording itself, so it was up to her and her research partner to determine the categorization after listening to the record in question.
Having had about 24 hours to think about it, it wasn’t the most prepared I’d ever been for a talk, but I had done what I could on the bus ride down. Surprisingly, in the end people really liked my little description of my writing process, which I coupled with a short discussion of ethical issues in doing fieldwork (my friend Rossy had recently suggested this was a big problem for people doing field research without any training in an ethnographic discipline, so I just thought I’d throw it in there). Dario showed up just at the end, having just flown in from New York, and he and Rossy and I then went out for dinner. Since it was then an 11 PM dinner there weren’t many options – in fact, all that was open was a Chinese-criollo fast food joint. On our way, we ducked into the new Metro station to check it out. I haven’t ridden on it yet, but it certainly looks impressive and clean – quite a bit different from the ol’ New York subway system.
On Wednesday, I hurried back to Santiago to squeeze in a couple of interviews before I had to run back to the capital yet again. I’d decided I ought to speak with some carnival officials, so my first stop (straight from the bus station) was Channel 25, the headquarters of MUCI, Medios Unidos del Cibao, the organization in charge of the commercialization of carnival.
When I arrived, I was surprised to find Sergio, the Robalagallina of my program the other day, there with a couple of others signing up for the carnival competition. This was also the headquarters for that enterprise. When you signed in, you got a color-coded placard (according to categories like lechon, “personaje,” comparsa, individual, etc.) with a number on it to be affixed to your costume, or hung between the horns in the case of a lechon. After a few minutes, Angelo the maskmaker showed up as well, as did the person I was there to interview, a MUCI official who wished to remain anonymous. But this person then also put me immediately in touch with a carnival eminence of years past, a member of one of Santiago’s traditional families and of a cohort of folklore enthusiasts that had also included well-known locals like Tomas Morel and Tin Pichardo. After a long talk in his beautiful house in La Zurza, he gave me a further lead by mentioning that an old acquaintance, a composer and arranger who had produced El Prodigio’s last album, was the person who had been charged with creating a local carnival music style for Santiago. This gave me another interview to add to the list, as well as a possible paper topic!
The next day I had to go back to Santo Domingo yet again, but first I really had to do some more interviews, this time of the president of MOSACA, the carnival association to which my group belongs, and, since I would be in their joint place of work anyway, a follow-up with Carlos of Los Reyes, this time about his role in FELECSA, the federation of carnival groups. After that it was on the bus again, this time to attend the opening ceremony of the Red Cultural Dominicana. My friend Rossy had been working on this new project, funded by the EU, which is seeking to create a network and inventory of cultural resources in the country, as a step in developing cultural policy from the bottom up. In fact, this was why she’d been sent with me to Samana the week before.
While waiting for things to get rolling, Rossy and a college friend of hers went with me for a drink in the bar next door. On the way we ran into a Hunter College student doing a master’s thesis project on carnival who, as it so happened, had seen my tertulia the week before, so he came along too. Back at the ranch, we found Luc of Samana and his twin musician brother in attendance as well.
The first part of the event consisted of a mass of speeches, naturally enough, from a variety of dignitaries. These included the subsecretary of culture (an old acquaintance of mine), the secretary of sport, an EU representative, and I can’t remember who else besides the director of the Red himself, Roldan, a rock star type in a black guitar t-shirt, long flowing hair and a mustache. Afterwards came the good part, a musical performance by a variety of traditional and not-so-traditional musicians from all around the south. Eneroliza singing salves from Villa Mella, four men from Bani improvising chuines – many of them about fellow ethnomusicologist Martha Ellen Davis (who was right next to me), a group playing sarandunga from the same region, and finally a group combining ga-ga rhythms with reggae electric guitar in an idiosyncratic way.
Back again to Santiago in the morning. It was getting hard to keep track of the days with all this back and forth. At any rate, I was getting things done.
But now I enter into the realm of memory. As is usual, I didn’t manage to write up my blog notes at all during the last week. No matter how well organized I think I am, during the last week of my stay I always end up running around like a crazy person anyway, and hardly sleeping..
So here is my last week in short.
On that Friday I hurried back to Santiago, and was in time to do an interview with music producer Jochy. It was actually more of a follow-up interview to one I’d done five years earlier, but this time I wanted to focus on carnival. I got lost going there because in the five years the tiny shrubs I’d remembered in front of his gate had turned into big palm trees. After that things went well though, and we listened to a new track he’d put together as an ad jingle for a rum company. They’d rejected it because it had only percussion and whistling in it – a typical carnival sound, but apparently not rousing enough for them. Afterwards, La India Canela had invited me to dinner. I got there late, too, now because of a traffic jam, but that was ok. We still had two hours to talk and drink wine before dinner was ready. In the meantime, we listened to the product of our labor (the Folkways CD), shared memories and new experiences. She told me about her trip to Washington, DC, a city that greatly impressed her although she had no time to visit museums because her time was totally booked with interviews. And we discussed her upcoming gig in the Midwest, for which I’d been asked to write some program notes. I was happy to hear about how much her life had changed for the better, how many new doors had opened for her, since our marathon recording session almost 2 years earlier.
On Saturday I dragged myself out of bed with difficulty in order to hear a lecture by a visiting Catalan, about devils in Catalunyan celebrations. The footage of the firework-spewing devils dancing around fires inspired me to go over there and check out this living medieval tradition someday. Afterwards I shlepped over to Tonito’s to say my goodbyes, since I didn’t know when else I’d have a chance to, and then ran back to the CL once again for the “Tarde de Carnaval,” their annual event to which are invited carnival groups from all over the country. Some of the guests had attended the earlier lecture (they were easily identified by the whips slung casually over their shoulders). This year features the Toros y Civiles of Montecristi, the Mascaras del Diablo of Elias Pina, the Cachuas de Cabral, the Papeluses of Salcedo, Platanuses and Funduses of Cotui, and of course many local lechon groups. The two first named were new to me and quite impressive and scary – along with the Cachuas, these people still actually hit each other with whips, while we lechones only use them to make scary noises. There were also some local comparsas in attendance, including a bellydance comparsa! After this I was pretty tired but since I still in all this time hadn’t seen my old friend Claudia, I made the effort to stay awake long enough to see a movie with her – a silly new Dominican production called “Cristiano de la Secreta.” It wasn’t exactly brilliant, but it was entertaining enough to me in my sleep-deprived state.
On Sunday morning I realized I had no money so ran around looking for a functioning ATM, which I found only on the third try. I made it to Betania’s just in the nick of time to catch our “taxi” (actually a pickup truck) to the usual carnival holding area behind the monument. And we were there just in time to – you guessed it – wait around for five hours in our costumes in the sun. Somehow I managed to get burned even with a costume. I also didn’t have anything to eat except for popcorn and a beer all afternoon. But there was enough happening to break up the boredom: a Haitian stilt walker sitting on a high wall getting dressed and then dancing humorously but with an intense expression for the bystanders; endless streams of vendors selling ice cream, sunglasses, peanuts, confetti, beer, etc; groups of teenagers in matching t-shirts; the comparsa “Los Deportados” in matching checked pajama pants. I also chatted a bit with the mother of the new girl in our group – turns out she too used to dress up, quit when she had a baby, and is now passing the torch on to her daughter. She recalled that, when growing up in La Joya a couple of decades past, female lechones did not yet exist, at least ot her knowledge, so she and friends dressed up as gypsies, jardineras, or clowns instead.
Just like last year – although a change had been promised – we finally got on the road just as it was getting dark, parading down Las Carreras under the street lamps. there was a moment of fright when a panicked crowd started running towards us, reporting that someone had a gun, but nothing happened. Twice I got stopped by photographers attempting to photograph my obviously bluish eyes through the mask holes. I thought they were noting my foreignness, but one of them said, “Anyone can see they are a woman’s eyes.” Like before, I kept on dancing the whole time my mask was on, even when pouring sweat, and only noticed how tired I was and how much my knees hurt when I took it off. But my work wasn’t don’t even then. I had to make do with more fried street food (empanada and bola de yuca, or bola de grasa as I call it) for dinner so I could hurry off to catch Rafaelito’s gig at Las Vegas. It was my last chance to see him play this year, so carnival was no excuse to miss it. And afterwards there were more greaseballs to ease my sleep, this time the famous naboa.
Monday was spent at the CL reading some reports. Also went out for Chinese food with some of my colleagues there. Among other things, we discussed the experiences one of them had had in carnival as a young person, working on floats on the Calle del Sol. On Tuesday I dragged myself out of bed early enough to see a performance the Ballet Folklorico del Centro de la Cultura was putting on for highschool students. I went to videotape but found myself a surprise part of the show when Tony, the director, asked me up on stage to demonstrate merengue with him, apparently in a bid to shame the high schoolers into admitting they didn’t know how to dance a decent merengue themselves. Afterwards I did some gift shopping, then some more reading at the Centro, then went to interview ol’ Polanquito before the MOSACA meeting. In searching for an appropriate interview space, we also payed a visit to Dionisio, a maskmaker. Then it was home for an early farewell dinner with Arlette and Laura, where we shared tales of hypochondria.
On Wednesday morning I met with a couple of members of Los Reyes del Pueblo Nuevo, had a quick lunch of cheese sandwiches and coffee and a colmado, and then headed out to El Ingenio to do my annual, and long-overdue, round of visiting. El Buty found me before I found him, as he was coming by Rafaelito’s anyway. Then I saw Domingo and family, who had a new cat named La Rubia although she was actually a he, they had discovered belatedly, and a new, tiny puppy called Floppy. Floppy and La Rubia were the best of friends and abused each other mercilessly until they got tired and both went to sleep together. I suggested renaming La Rubio El Rubio instead, but when we tried it out the cat didn’t respond. Domingo presented me with a wacky güira he’d recently unearthed in a closet or something – an El Pinto work,vintage 2000, made out of a Johnny Walker can. Next I went to see Laura where we discussed the costs of education and then got poured on by an unexpected rainstorm, and then I hurried back to Rafaelito’s in time for the typically fabulous dinner Carmen prepared for my farewell. Finally, I rounded out the evening at the Casa de Arte hearing a talk about Moises Zouain and the bolero, with performances by local boleristas.
Thursday was taken up with more reading, more shopping, and more meetings, with a palos party at Casa de Arte as a variation. There I saw all the usual suspects and caught up a bit with Grupo Mello. I felt bad I hadn’t called them or visited all this time, but our schedules don’t really mesh during carnival time as I’m busy on all the days they are free, and I am parading while they are rehearsing. Someday I must come back at another time of year.
Friday, my last day, was also independence day. I still had lots of people I wanted to meet with or interview but no one was answering their phones. Instead I wrapped things up at the CL and met Claudia for lunch at the vegetarian Taiwanese restaurant. Then her boyfriend kindly offered to drive me to Los Ciruelitos, where I planned to go to observe the barrio carnival. Because the Catholic church had made a big stink this year about carnival on independence day – they are against it, although I’m not sure what independence day has to do with the church, nor am I clear about why they chose this year to complain when this tradition is many decades old – the official carnival parade had been moved to the prior Sunday and only unofficial events would take place today. Somehow, things had gotten split in two, and some groups were parading in Los Ciruelitos, others on Las Carreras again.. I was pretty sick of Las Carreras and my group wasn’t dressing up anyway, preferring to save their energies for the following day, when MOSACA had organized yet another barrio carnival as their final event (too bad I didn’t know this when I made my plane reservations – I would miss it). So I decided just to film.
As mentioned, Claudia’s boyfriend agreed to drive me there, but where “there” was was another matter. I thought I’d try to get together with Sergio, the Robalagallina of Los Ciruelitos, and his group of kids, but we couldn’t find them anywhere. Felt like a bit of a wild goose chase – or maybe more of a search for El Dorado - as we kept stopping to ask people and they kept pointing us down the road in a “he went thataway – you just missed him!” routine. Eventually someone told us that he usually left his stuff at the home base of Los Tuaregs, a group of lechones, and got dressed over there so I decided to wait it out with Los Tuaregs. The problem was I didn’t know any of them, only one made an effort to talk to me, and the rest of them looked busy, flitting in and out of the backyard of a little house whose living room was full of glittery masks. Since I didn’t know the homeowners I couldn’t exactly go back there myself, and as I waited to be able to introduce myself to their leader (who disappeared in a car shortly after I arrived) I watched the neighborhood kids get into carnival mood. Eventually some carnival groups from other areas started appearing on the street, carrying masks and costumes and dragging suitcases on their way to the staging area on the avenida One of them was Los Reyes del Mambo, led by my friend Carlos, so I decided to give up on Los Tuaregs and join them instead.
Up on the avenue everyone was milling around, most already in costume, some playing some music, in a kind of pre-carnival carnival. I saw Obama with his security detail: they let me shake his hand, and I told him I voted for him. They like that.There were Los Muertos Tambien Trabajan, whose float this year featured dead guys building their own coffins. Man, death is no picnic. There were some comparsas practicing dance routines and an Ali Baba group playing drums. I wandered around filming the groups until things got started, then took a spot down the block. From there I observed a group of dancing flight attendants and another of lottery ticket sellers, Sergio – at long last- with his kids, lots of lechones, an obscene flasher accompanied by a dwarf, and a scary group of half lechon/half lucha libre wrestlers (the costume of the former, the mask of the latter) who went around whacking everyone possible with their bladders, and hard. But I never did find El Papelon, the performer of a traditional carnival dance I’d been searching for for weeks. At least I made it out of there without bruises and on to do some final tasks – get a CD from Denio and borrow some historic videotapes of old merengue típico musicians from Gaspar, just long enough to make myself some copies. This I did for as long as I could take it, then went home to pack.
And that pretty much brings me back to here, Berlin, and my German classes, which have no place on this blog.
Showing posts with label carnival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carnival. Show all posts
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
No dance for you!
2/9-2/15
In the meantime, many things were happening. Many things. I got called to go for an interview at a southern California university, which would certainly be a good location for me, so of course I accepted even though I was in the middle of fieldwork and they wanted me to go on the very dates for which I had just, finally, scheduled my return trip to Samana. This fact necessitated some frantic phone calling in order to change things around. In the end, I did reschedule my Samana recording trip for this week, although it would have to be a very quick one in order to get back to Santiago in time for my carnival talk.
So, Monday morning found me setting out for Samana at an earlyish hour, and on a rather uncomfortable series of guaguas. Well, the first one, to San Francisco de Macoris, was large and pretty OK, but from there to Nagua it was just a pickup truck, and the last leg was in the kind of overcrowded minibus one finds in Santiago – no problem for short distances, but less than ideal for longer ones. The whole time I was mostly worried about my luggage (with all my recording equipment inside) getting squished, soaked, or dropped, especially when it appeared the guy in the bed of the pickup truck was about to sit on it.
At any rate, both the luggage and I got safely to Samana, where Rossy, Luc, and I met up and had some lunch, before installing ourselves and our equipment in Luc’s rather empty three-bedroom house, which he had kindly offered as free lodging to the two ethnomusicologists. It was still rainy, as it had been for a week and a half, but when it let up to a light drizzle Rossy and I thought we should make the best of it and headed off in search of either (a) Mártires, a local traditional music teacher, or (b) Yoyó, the old merengue redondo musician who was supposed to be preparing the bamboo tubes to be used for the recording. I had a vagueish idea of where they lived, so we took a guagua up the hill and started searching. Knowing they were on top of one of these hillsides, we took the first staircase up. On top of the hill we found a brick house under construction, a madly barking scruffy dog, and a fully-constructed wooden house in the back. There were also a couple of chairs and a wire clothesline under a tree, with which I just about took my head off in an incautious moment.
I was a little afraid to advance towards the angry dog, but then an old woman emerged from the house and I asked about Yoyó. Turned out he lived on the next hill over, so we’d have to go down, up the street, and back up some different stairs. Then I asked about Mártires, and was surprised to find out that this was his very house, and she was his mother! He wasn’t home, but she was sure he was somewhere in the neighborhood, working on a conuco. She shouted in the direction of one palm-tree-studded, mist-shrouded hill, then another. We were in luck. After a minute, Mártires appeared in a straw hat. He had been off conversing with a neighboring Italian whose land he sometimes worked.
Rossy and I were invited in to the pleasant little pink and blue house, which on the inside was typically festooned with frilly satin curtains over the Persian windows. Surprisingly, for this hilltop location, a television was on in the middle of the room showing sports, with the sound now turned off. We spent the next couple of hours in pleasant conversation with him, his mother occasionally joining in in appreciation of his singing snippets of songs for us, and his sister appearing somewhat later and making us coffee. At times, it rained so hard on the tin roof it was hard to hear anything. By the time we left it was dark and the stairs slippery, so Mártires accompanied us down to the road, where we caught a motoconcho (something I usually avoid but which was unavoidable on this drizzly, quiet night).
The next day we had planned to follow up on some of the leads we’d just gotten, for example, going to talk to the head of the Oli-Oli carnival group, or searching out some groups of palos players who lived nearby. I also wanted to hunt down the old tres player my mom and I had seen playing for tourists on Cayo Levantado during our last trip.
But none of this was destined to be. From the moment we got up to the moment we went to sleep, it poured rain without stopping. In fact, at the one moment it seemed to be slowing down, around 1 PM, I said “Looks like it’s letting up. Think I’ll go check my email now,” and this statement was immediately followed by a torrential downpour. The only thing missing was the thunderclap from heaven. We did venture out for lunch at some point, but came back very wet, bedraggled, and with a broken umbrella. At least while we were out we ran into Yogeny, one of the musicians slated for the recording session we’d scheduled for that afternoon and still entertained hopes of completing. He said they were still looking for Yoyó. I mentioned the tres player and it turned out he knew him very well, even said he’d try to look for him. That would save me a trip to the town of La Pascula, where I would have had to wander all around town asking anyway.
Eventually the slated hour of 3 PM rolled around. Rossy and I were still shut in the house, hoping in vain for the rain to stop since we didn’t have any more dry clothes. It didn’t, but I had to venture out with the broken umbrella anyway in order to look for the musicians in the park. I went and found Yogeny, El Zurdo, and Miguel the tres player in the gazebo or bandshell or whatever it was. Miguel was already entertaining everyone else who was waiting out the rain, inventing rhymes especially for the occasion. El Zurdo went off and came back shortly with a guitar with which he could accompany Miguel, and they began playing sones in duet. Soon Pai showed up as well, and then Virgilio was driving by in a friend’s van, returning shortly to sing and dance with us in our impromptu rainy day party. We were still hoping Yoyo would show but after an hour we figured we should get started. The next problem was getting a taxi, since no one was on the road and walking the instruments over to Luc’s house in all this rain was out of the question. Eventually an acquaintance of Virgilio’s (maybe all the townspeople are his acquaintances?) drove by with a van and agreed to take us in two loads. So we finally got started.
I’d expected another one-hour straight shot of recording like the last time, but it turned into quite the epic session. Miguel took over and just kept on playing one song after another, apparently enjoying the audience (consisting of the other musicians, Rossy, Luc, and myself) and the beverages (he and Yogeny drank Cuba Libres, the others only juice). We thought the noise was appropriate payback for the sleepless night we’d had at the hands of the neighbors who had played loud music until 2 AM or so, filling in the gaps caused by intermittent power outages with equally loud arguments. It was also interesting to see what he chose to play. It recalled to me those ethnomusicological accounts of researchers going off to record “real” gypsy music and finding that the gypsies wanted to play American country music tunes for them. Miguel played merengues and bachatas – many of them by the popular 1960s-70s musician Eladio Romero Santos, boleros and sones – many of them Cuban, and even corridos and rancheras – from Mexico. Naturally, this was the kind of music that was popular when he was young (he was born in 1936).
I didn’t really want to be the kind of ethnomusicologist that insisted on “authenticity,” and also it sounded really good, so I mostly let him play what he wanted. I did make a few requests, though. Once I suggested something “from here” – my most successful way so far of getting what might be considered “folk” music. To this, Yogeny helpfully added, “The older the better!” Here was someone who knew the folklorists’ ways. Another time I asked Miguel to play something of his own composition, which yielded an interesting call-and-response merengue. Later on, after Pai mentioned working in the fields as a kid, I asked if they had used cantos de hacha, or work songs. Of course they had, he replied. But they weren’t used anymore because, whereas before they had worked in large groups on land owned by others, now people worked in cooperatives, and in this system only two or three people ever had to work at once, obviating the need for communal work songs. However, they still remembered those work songs, and my request elicited a call-and-response song which they accompanied in a merengue style.
Miguel was really into things for a while, but when he lost interest he really lost it. At about 8 PM he was tired and just wanted to go home. We couldn’t manage to find a taxi for him, so instead walked him down to the main road for another motoconcho ride. When we got back from that, everyone else seemed kind of tired too. We had been at it for three hours, so actually I was a bit tired myself. We called it a night, then went off to eat bacalao at a comedor.
The next day at midmorning the weather cleared up and hot sun came out. Unfortunately, I had to head back to Santiago already in order to be ready for my tertulia the next day. An inquiry at Caribe Tours provided the strange information that, due to the construction of a brand-new highway linking the Samaná peninsula with Santo Domingo via Monte Plata, taking a bus to the capital and from there another to Santiago actually took about the same amount of time as going straight to Santiago, even though it was twice the distance. That shows you how great the roads are in the Cibao. It was more expensive this way but would also be much more comfortable, and involve fewer bus changes. Also, I could go with Rossy half the way, so I decided to give it a try. Indeed, it was a pretty easy way of doing it, although it was a bit boring after my computer and phone batteries ran out and it was too dark to read.
Back in Santiago, I spent the next day preparing for the evening’s event by looking over notes, looking up things in books, and making phone calls. By 6 PM I was as ready as I’d ever be so I could go hear the talk that preceded mine, one by noteworthy folklorist Dagoberto Tejeda Ortiz on his new carnival book. Because it started late, it also ended late, and thus my own talk was also late. The nice thing was the intermission between the two, during which time a group of lechones came in and danced us out to the patio, where they madly cracked whips as we drank a beer.
Well, my program went as well as could be expected, I think. It was an academic talk that started too late, and therefore finished too late, so some people were restless. It was great to have the performers themselves there. They all had interesting stories to tell. Sergio “Mochila” gave a funny and lively performance as Roba la Gallina, even getting the whole audience to sing the traditional chants. Papote had everyone cracking up; one memorable quote, in relation to my question if he didn’t get tired going dancing every night, was “No, I don’t get tired at the parties. When I go to work, though, that’s when I get tired.” Polanquito, the 70-something lechon, appeared to be somewhat drunk and fell on the floor during his performance – on purpose. He said he “wanted to show us how it was like in the old days. This is what the lechones would do after they’d been out all day and were finally heading home.” I also learned that lechones have their own way of talking – they make kind of grunting sounds, but I hadn’t known this before as they don’t do much good with the volume of music used in today’s carnival. Someone mentioned that some lechones used to use whistles, too. (Is this why some lechon costumes have whistles on them as decorative elements?) My talk was considerably less amusing than they were, although I did have a story about phallic symbols in there.
I had predicted that people would either love my talk or hate it. It had a part about social class, carnival and merengue típico, and it had a part about the symbolism of the carnival characters, particularly the lechon, which I connected to various African diaspora manifestations of Eleggua. A number of people told me afterwards that they loved it, including the dancers themselves. But one person in particular seemed to hate it. He shall remain nameless. Although a friend of mine, it is a friendship that requires work, because he is the sort who wants to be the person who knows everything. Therefore, nothing that he doesn’t know or hasn’t already thought of can be worth knowing or thinking of. Thus, he had a whole series of questions/criticisms for me in the (very short due to time) Q&A session.
One was justified: I had said that merengue típico dancing hadn’t been studied, and of course he pointed out the work of Fradique Lizardo. I should have been more specific. I should have stated that modern-day merengue típico dancing hadn’t been studied, and merengue dancing in general hadn’t been studied anthropologically or ethnographically. Lizardo’s work is useful, but mostly for staging the dances, since he went around collecting dance steps of yesteryear for practical use in his Ballet Folklorico Dominicano. Thus, his dance book consists of lists of information like steps, costumes, occasions on which performed, etc, but is not an ethnographic work.
Strangely, the thing this person most objected to was my calling what Roba La Gallina and the Lechon do “dance”. During the lecture, I had actually already explained this point, giving the definition of “dance” from the book Anthropology of Dance, a definition that fits well with what both of these characters do. In addition, I noted, these people themselves refer to their “dance,” so who am I to say it isn’t? He apparently didn’t find this explanation sufficient. So now I added that if he wanted to include “choreography” in the definition, as he apparently did, then merengue típico also couldn’t be called a dance, since it doesn’t have choreography or even specific steps, and yet we all seem to describe it as a dance. He conceded that the lechones do “rhythmic steps,” but not dance. I wonder what a dance like merengue is to him, then, if not rhythmic steps? (Also, why is everything not what I think it is? I remember when I started studying merengue tipico, someone told me, "it's not even music." remember that?)
In a separate conversation, it seemed that his objection was really that no one else had written about these dances as dances before, including Lizardo, so therefore they couldn’t possibly be dances. I think the other implication was that no American should be able to come in and point out that Dominican scholars had neglected to study this particular area of dance. Fair enough, and certainly I don’t need to have the last word on the subject, but isn’t the point to create new dialogues, new directions for scholarship? Not to repeat the same studies everyone else has already done of carnival or of dance, but to build on them? To lend a new viewpoint that may cause people to reconsider their assumptions? Maybe even to validate what the carnavaleros have been doing for decades, without receiving any recognition? Obviously, I found this objection rather annoying, not only because it seemed a somewhat personal attack, questioning the legitimacy of my work, but because it was of little use in achieving these goals.
I had two other questions, much less polemical. One person suggested that the limping movement only existed for a functional reason, for the purpose of making the bells on the costume ring. I disagreed with this, as many other kinds of movement could also make the bells ring. (I should have added that you can’t hear the bells at all anymore anyway, but the limp is still used by many lechones.) Another asked if the lechon dance hadn’t changed over the years, since now they dance to music and formerly only to the chants of observers. This was actually a good question, to which Polanquito gave a wacky answer but then we had to call it a night.
On Friday, I recovered from the experience by avoiding the CL in favor of doing loads of errands. I bought little costumes for my nephews, picked up my own costume from the tailor, and spent most of the afternoon gluing bells and mirrors on it. Did some shopping. Blah blah.
On Saturday, I was ready to go – a replacement carnival was planned for that day because of the previous Sunday’s rainy cancellation. So I got up early, did my email, picked up my costume from Tonito’s and hurried over to Betania’s…. where, naturally, we waited. Julio helped me fix up my morcilla (the cover the tailor had made was naturally too short, which necessitated a quick amputation of the original morcilla) in the meantime. Eventually everyone was ready to go so we piled our costumes, masks, bladders, and selves into two cars and headed to Ensanche Bermudez, the barrio that was supposed to be our carnival site for the day. I was looking forward to it, because I always like these barrio events more than the big parade on Las Carreras – less crowded, more comfortable, and seeing something different every time.
After driving around the neighborhood a couple of times and seeing no one, though, it seemed unlikely that any carnival was going on. I suggested maybe the wires had gotten crossed and it was really Ensanche Bolivar, so we checked there too on our way back, but nothing. So that was it: a big buildup and no payoff, just like last Sunday only sunnier. The next day someone told me they’d decided to cancel it because it fell on Valentine’s Day. What kind of a retarded reason is that?!
Anyway, there was nothing for it. Instead I went to the bookstore to check out the selection and enjoy a fancy coffee beverage. Then I went home to sleep it off and prepare for what would hopefully be an actual carnival the next day.
On Sunday, once the email had been read, I was ready to give it another go. But first, I had an appointment with Los Reyes del Mambo, the carnival group run out of Ensanche Bolivar by Carlos Batista. He claimed the kids in his group really knew the lechon kind of dance (or “rhythmic steps”, as some would prefer) so I was going to film them doing it. My instructions were to get dropped off at the “colmadon” and someone would meet me there. My fellow passengers expressed concern over this plan, after having ascertained that I wasn’t really going to the church nearby. “Now, you’re sure you have your friend’s number? Call him as soon as we get there!” I assured htem I would, and indeed I did, and a few minutes later Carlos’s son, also named Carlos but considerably smaller, showed up to accompany me to their house, which was actually less than a block away. Also, it was easy to recognize by the three yellow upside-down lechon masks propped on sticks in the front yard, and the whips, recently painted blue, drying on the clothesline. Also, everyone present was dressed in their team t-shirts, an attractive blue color with grey trim and the Reyes mascot on the back – a little man designed after an Incan mask.So the Kings of Mambo are really Incan kings!
In fact, Carlos the younger and a cousin of his did dance for me in two forms, which Carlos referred to as “traditional” and “modern,” and both with and without whips. Then Carlos gave me a little explanation on video of the limping movement and the changes in style. I took a look at their costumes, which also figure the little Incan guy on the back (later on they added a body to him, which is clothed in a Henry VIII type fur-trimmed robe). I would have liked to stay longer, but I was worried about keeping my own group waiting for me so I hitched a ride back down to Betania’s. Where, naturally, everyone was standing around waiting. Well, not exactly standing around: Julio was repainting and re-glittering masks, Betania was sewing something, Katiry’s boyfriend was gluing bells, our newest female member was dancing, and some teenagers were teaching others how to use the whip or to move like a lechon. This I filmed, and then one of them took over as narrator of my film and took me around to look at and explain all the carnival accountrements that could be found in and around the yard.
Eventually, somehow, we all got dressed and ready to go – well, six of us were in costume; the other two weren’t quite ready with theirs yet and will join next week Then we set off through the streets of Pueblo Nuevo, just like old times. The strange thing is, I can never quite remember how to move like a lechon until I put on the mask and hear some music. That, and seeing other lechones, somehow allows my body to find the right moves again. And once I start,. it’s actually hard to stop until I take the mask off again. There’s something comforting about having the mask on, even if it is stiflingly hot and sweaty inside, and something horribly lame about just standing around in the street with all this get-up on. I had one vejiga in each hand – the third one I’d bought had mysteriously deflated in the interim – which eeps my hands comfortably occupied and also reminds me to keep my elbows up (something I’d been told lechones should always do).
Wearing the mask gives you license to act a little wacky (granted, some lechones don’t need a mask, or license, for that). But some people like Julio, who are relatively staid in everyday life, become surprisingly energetic and funny inside the costume. Julio was coming up with all kinds of fancy footwork and even doing leg-only jumping jacks while dressed up, to the amusement of onlookers. My narrator usually does more comically sexual moves, like those one might see on a dance floot when reggeton is playing, and this is always a crowd favorite. I tend toward a more bouncy, skipping kind of merengue with a little bit of limp, although I often switch to typical palos movements when they play Eneroliza, which they always do. (It seems to me that the same exact carnival songs have been used every year that I’ve participated: Baile en la Calle, a medley of palos and salve sung by Eneroliza, a few other things. This year there was also a reggaeton number and a nonsense merengue approaching quebradita in its rhythm. And on the way home, with our masks off, they played some merengue típico and then a set of all reggaeton or hiphop, possibly to take us back down with slower beats.)
Once I get going, I eventually get into the zone, where you’re not quite sure how much time has passed and you’re not really thinking about anything in particular. It’s whenever I stop to think about it that I get tired and think about how much sweat is running down my shirt inside my costume, how hot the sun is and how my costume just soaks it right up, how my feet or my knee are kind of hurting, how the music is way too loud and it makes my head pound, and how it’s hard to breathe in there. Every so often, though, you get a short break when an assistant brings you a little plastic pouch of cold water from the bed of the “disco lite.” In past years, there would be some rum going around too, but this year only one person had any and not much, and one beer made the rounds at one point. You wouldn’t want to drink too much because of dehybration, but you do want to drink a little, to give yourself the energy to keep on going.
While I move along, I watch the spectators and they watch me. Many are taking films or photos with cell phones or cameras. If they want a photo, we’re supposed to pose in a typical lechon style. Sometimes they want us to hold babies, and the babies aren’t always too sure about this. Sometimes they want us to shake a kid’s hand, or to dance with them. I like the feeling of anonymity inside the mask. Most of the time, no one knows I’m not Dominican, although sometimes when someone gets a straight shot and can look straight into the mask and see my eyes, I notice a look of surprise. Also, it would help to have gloves to cover up my blindingly white and clearly female hands. I might work on that later. Some spectators are more malicious and want to through confetti straight into your mask, into your mouth if they can manage it, so you have to watch out for them too. I don’t usually whack people with the bladders, although this is the traditional thing to do, but some people specifically ask you to and then I try to oblige.
At any rate, this is how it is on Las Carreras. Before that, our spectators are peoplpe standing in the doorways of their houses or on streetcorners by the colmados, or even families packed onto little motorbikes and temporarily stopped to take a look. Old women sitting on the sidewalk raise up their arms and move to the music along with us as we pass. And afterwards, we make our way home through the same streets, now unmasked and relaxed as we cool off – by this time, night is just faling. Random people from the neighborhood join us, following along behind our isco lite and singing or dancing along. One nattily dressed transvestite comes along, standing right by the speakers. He is in a blue sequined dress that barely reached the tops of his thighs, a long wig and red heels. He is accompanied by a small girl in a lechon costume -- his daughter? At one point she asks me, wordlessly, to fix her stuck zipper. When I do, she runs back up to join him again.
So finally, with the month half over, we had one real carnival day. I’m a little worried by rumors that there may not be any carnival on Feb 27 this year. Apparently, some dorky church people are complaining that combining carnival with independence day ruins the “solemnity” of the latter, or some such ridiculous thing. No matter that this has been the tradition for a zillion years now, and that without it, independence day would just be any other boring state holiday, in which the people do not in any way participate. How is that what they want? And how is it up to the church how a national holiday should be celebrated? This is one of the stupidest things I’d ever heard and I’ll be really mad if they actually succeed.
In the meantime, I must report, I had to cancel my job interview in California - - because I got a job offer!! Details to come. All the better not to have to interrupt fieldwork or to prepare three talks. Unfortunately, I’d already been shopping for interview clothes, not an easy task for me. They did come in handy at the tertulia, though.
In the meantime, many things were happening. Many things. I got called to go for an interview at a southern California university, which would certainly be a good location for me, so of course I accepted even though I was in the middle of fieldwork and they wanted me to go on the very dates for which I had just, finally, scheduled my return trip to Samana. This fact necessitated some frantic phone calling in order to change things around. In the end, I did reschedule my Samana recording trip for this week, although it would have to be a very quick one in order to get back to Santiago in time for my carnival talk.
So, Monday morning found me setting out for Samana at an earlyish hour, and on a rather uncomfortable series of guaguas. Well, the first one, to San Francisco de Macoris, was large and pretty OK, but from there to Nagua it was just a pickup truck, and the last leg was in the kind of overcrowded minibus one finds in Santiago – no problem for short distances, but less than ideal for longer ones. The whole time I was mostly worried about my luggage (with all my recording equipment inside) getting squished, soaked, or dropped, especially when it appeared the guy in the bed of the pickup truck was about to sit on it.
At any rate, both the luggage and I got safely to Samana, where Rossy, Luc, and I met up and had some lunch, before installing ourselves and our equipment in Luc’s rather empty three-bedroom house, which he had kindly offered as free lodging to the two ethnomusicologists. It was still rainy, as it had been for a week and a half, but when it let up to a light drizzle Rossy and I thought we should make the best of it and headed off in search of either (a) Mártires, a local traditional music teacher, or (b) Yoyó, the old merengue redondo musician who was supposed to be preparing the bamboo tubes to be used for the recording. I had a vagueish idea of where they lived, so we took a guagua up the hill and started searching. Knowing they were on top of one of these hillsides, we took the first staircase up. On top of the hill we found a brick house under construction, a madly barking scruffy dog, and a fully-constructed wooden house in the back. There were also a couple of chairs and a wire clothesline under a tree, with which I just about took my head off in an incautious moment.
I was a little afraid to advance towards the angry dog, but then an old woman emerged from the house and I asked about Yoyó. Turned out he lived on the next hill over, so we’d have to go down, up the street, and back up some different stairs. Then I asked about Mártires, and was surprised to find out that this was his very house, and she was his mother! He wasn’t home, but she was sure he was somewhere in the neighborhood, working on a conuco. She shouted in the direction of one palm-tree-studded, mist-shrouded hill, then another. We were in luck. After a minute, Mártires appeared in a straw hat. He had been off conversing with a neighboring Italian whose land he sometimes worked.
Rossy and I were invited in to the pleasant little pink and blue house, which on the inside was typically festooned with frilly satin curtains over the Persian windows. Surprisingly, for this hilltop location, a television was on in the middle of the room showing sports, with the sound now turned off. We spent the next couple of hours in pleasant conversation with him, his mother occasionally joining in in appreciation of his singing snippets of songs for us, and his sister appearing somewhat later and making us coffee. At times, it rained so hard on the tin roof it was hard to hear anything. By the time we left it was dark and the stairs slippery, so Mártires accompanied us down to the road, where we caught a motoconcho (something I usually avoid but which was unavoidable on this drizzly, quiet night).
The next day we had planned to follow up on some of the leads we’d just gotten, for example, going to talk to the head of the Oli-Oli carnival group, or searching out some groups of palos players who lived nearby. I also wanted to hunt down the old tres player my mom and I had seen playing for tourists on Cayo Levantado during our last trip.
But none of this was destined to be. From the moment we got up to the moment we went to sleep, it poured rain without stopping. In fact, at the one moment it seemed to be slowing down, around 1 PM, I said “Looks like it’s letting up. Think I’ll go check my email now,” and this statement was immediately followed by a torrential downpour. The only thing missing was the thunderclap from heaven. We did venture out for lunch at some point, but came back very wet, bedraggled, and with a broken umbrella. At least while we were out we ran into Yogeny, one of the musicians slated for the recording session we’d scheduled for that afternoon and still entertained hopes of completing. He said they were still looking for Yoyó. I mentioned the tres player and it turned out he knew him very well, even said he’d try to look for him. That would save me a trip to the town of La Pascula, where I would have had to wander all around town asking anyway.
Eventually the slated hour of 3 PM rolled around. Rossy and I were still shut in the house, hoping in vain for the rain to stop since we didn’t have any more dry clothes. It didn’t, but I had to venture out with the broken umbrella anyway in order to look for the musicians in the park. I went and found Yogeny, El Zurdo, and Miguel the tres player in the gazebo or bandshell or whatever it was. Miguel was already entertaining everyone else who was waiting out the rain, inventing rhymes especially for the occasion. El Zurdo went off and came back shortly with a guitar with which he could accompany Miguel, and they began playing sones in duet. Soon Pai showed up as well, and then Virgilio was driving by in a friend’s van, returning shortly to sing and dance with us in our impromptu rainy day party. We were still hoping Yoyo would show but after an hour we figured we should get started. The next problem was getting a taxi, since no one was on the road and walking the instruments over to Luc’s house in all this rain was out of the question. Eventually an acquaintance of Virgilio’s (maybe all the townspeople are his acquaintances?) drove by with a van and agreed to take us in two loads. So we finally got started.
I’d expected another one-hour straight shot of recording like the last time, but it turned into quite the epic session. Miguel took over and just kept on playing one song after another, apparently enjoying the audience (consisting of the other musicians, Rossy, Luc, and myself) and the beverages (he and Yogeny drank Cuba Libres, the others only juice). We thought the noise was appropriate payback for the sleepless night we’d had at the hands of the neighbors who had played loud music until 2 AM or so, filling in the gaps caused by intermittent power outages with equally loud arguments. It was also interesting to see what he chose to play. It recalled to me those ethnomusicological accounts of researchers going off to record “real” gypsy music and finding that the gypsies wanted to play American country music tunes for them. Miguel played merengues and bachatas – many of them by the popular 1960s-70s musician Eladio Romero Santos, boleros and sones – many of them Cuban, and even corridos and rancheras – from Mexico. Naturally, this was the kind of music that was popular when he was young (he was born in 1936).
I didn’t really want to be the kind of ethnomusicologist that insisted on “authenticity,” and also it sounded really good, so I mostly let him play what he wanted. I did make a few requests, though. Once I suggested something “from here” – my most successful way so far of getting what might be considered “folk” music. To this, Yogeny helpfully added, “The older the better!” Here was someone who knew the folklorists’ ways. Another time I asked Miguel to play something of his own composition, which yielded an interesting call-and-response merengue. Later on, after Pai mentioned working in the fields as a kid, I asked if they had used cantos de hacha, or work songs. Of course they had, he replied. But they weren’t used anymore because, whereas before they had worked in large groups on land owned by others, now people worked in cooperatives, and in this system only two or three people ever had to work at once, obviating the need for communal work songs. However, they still remembered those work songs, and my request elicited a call-and-response song which they accompanied in a merengue style.
Miguel was really into things for a while, but when he lost interest he really lost it. At about 8 PM he was tired and just wanted to go home. We couldn’t manage to find a taxi for him, so instead walked him down to the main road for another motoconcho ride. When we got back from that, everyone else seemed kind of tired too. We had been at it for three hours, so actually I was a bit tired myself. We called it a night, then went off to eat bacalao at a comedor.
The next day at midmorning the weather cleared up and hot sun came out. Unfortunately, I had to head back to Santiago already in order to be ready for my tertulia the next day. An inquiry at Caribe Tours provided the strange information that, due to the construction of a brand-new highway linking the Samaná peninsula with Santo Domingo via Monte Plata, taking a bus to the capital and from there another to Santiago actually took about the same amount of time as going straight to Santiago, even though it was twice the distance. That shows you how great the roads are in the Cibao. It was more expensive this way but would also be much more comfortable, and involve fewer bus changes. Also, I could go with Rossy half the way, so I decided to give it a try. Indeed, it was a pretty easy way of doing it, although it was a bit boring after my computer and phone batteries ran out and it was too dark to read.
Back in Santiago, I spent the next day preparing for the evening’s event by looking over notes, looking up things in books, and making phone calls. By 6 PM I was as ready as I’d ever be so I could go hear the talk that preceded mine, one by noteworthy folklorist Dagoberto Tejeda Ortiz on his new carnival book. Because it started late, it also ended late, and thus my own talk was also late. The nice thing was the intermission between the two, during which time a group of lechones came in and danced us out to the patio, where they madly cracked whips as we drank a beer.
Well, my program went as well as could be expected, I think. It was an academic talk that started too late, and therefore finished too late, so some people were restless. It was great to have the performers themselves there. They all had interesting stories to tell. Sergio “Mochila” gave a funny and lively performance as Roba la Gallina, even getting the whole audience to sing the traditional chants. Papote had everyone cracking up; one memorable quote, in relation to my question if he didn’t get tired going dancing every night, was “No, I don’t get tired at the parties. When I go to work, though, that’s when I get tired.” Polanquito, the 70-something lechon, appeared to be somewhat drunk and fell on the floor during his performance – on purpose. He said he “wanted to show us how it was like in the old days. This is what the lechones would do after they’d been out all day and were finally heading home.” I also learned that lechones have their own way of talking – they make kind of grunting sounds, but I hadn’t known this before as they don’t do much good with the volume of music used in today’s carnival. Someone mentioned that some lechones used to use whistles, too. (Is this why some lechon costumes have whistles on them as decorative elements?) My talk was considerably less amusing than they were, although I did have a story about phallic symbols in there.
I had predicted that people would either love my talk or hate it. It had a part about social class, carnival and merengue típico, and it had a part about the symbolism of the carnival characters, particularly the lechon, which I connected to various African diaspora manifestations of Eleggua. A number of people told me afterwards that they loved it, including the dancers themselves. But one person in particular seemed to hate it. He shall remain nameless. Although a friend of mine, it is a friendship that requires work, because he is the sort who wants to be the person who knows everything. Therefore, nothing that he doesn’t know or hasn’t already thought of can be worth knowing or thinking of. Thus, he had a whole series of questions/criticisms for me in the (very short due to time) Q&A session.
One was justified: I had said that merengue típico dancing hadn’t been studied, and of course he pointed out the work of Fradique Lizardo. I should have been more specific. I should have stated that modern-day merengue típico dancing hadn’t been studied, and merengue dancing in general hadn’t been studied anthropologically or ethnographically. Lizardo’s work is useful, but mostly for staging the dances, since he went around collecting dance steps of yesteryear for practical use in his Ballet Folklorico Dominicano. Thus, his dance book consists of lists of information like steps, costumes, occasions on which performed, etc, but is not an ethnographic work.
Strangely, the thing this person most objected to was my calling what Roba La Gallina and the Lechon do “dance”. During the lecture, I had actually already explained this point, giving the definition of “dance” from the book Anthropology of Dance, a definition that fits well with what both of these characters do. In addition, I noted, these people themselves refer to their “dance,” so who am I to say it isn’t? He apparently didn’t find this explanation sufficient. So now I added that if he wanted to include “choreography” in the definition, as he apparently did, then merengue típico also couldn’t be called a dance, since it doesn’t have choreography or even specific steps, and yet we all seem to describe it as a dance. He conceded that the lechones do “rhythmic steps,” but not dance. I wonder what a dance like merengue is to him, then, if not rhythmic steps? (Also, why is everything not what I think it is? I remember when I started studying merengue tipico, someone told me, "it's not even music." remember that?)
In a separate conversation, it seemed that his objection was really that no one else had written about these dances as dances before, including Lizardo, so therefore they couldn’t possibly be dances. I think the other implication was that no American should be able to come in and point out that Dominican scholars had neglected to study this particular area of dance. Fair enough, and certainly I don’t need to have the last word on the subject, but isn’t the point to create new dialogues, new directions for scholarship? Not to repeat the same studies everyone else has already done of carnival or of dance, but to build on them? To lend a new viewpoint that may cause people to reconsider their assumptions? Maybe even to validate what the carnavaleros have been doing for decades, without receiving any recognition? Obviously, I found this objection rather annoying, not only because it seemed a somewhat personal attack, questioning the legitimacy of my work, but because it was of little use in achieving these goals.
I had two other questions, much less polemical. One person suggested that the limping movement only existed for a functional reason, for the purpose of making the bells on the costume ring. I disagreed with this, as many other kinds of movement could also make the bells ring. (I should have added that you can’t hear the bells at all anymore anyway, but the limp is still used by many lechones.) Another asked if the lechon dance hadn’t changed over the years, since now they dance to music and formerly only to the chants of observers. This was actually a good question, to which Polanquito gave a wacky answer but then we had to call it a night.
On Friday, I recovered from the experience by avoiding the CL in favor of doing loads of errands. I bought little costumes for my nephews, picked up my own costume from the tailor, and spent most of the afternoon gluing bells and mirrors on it. Did some shopping. Blah blah.
On Saturday, I was ready to go – a replacement carnival was planned for that day because of the previous Sunday’s rainy cancellation. So I got up early, did my email, picked up my costume from Tonito’s and hurried over to Betania’s…. where, naturally, we waited. Julio helped me fix up my morcilla (the cover the tailor had made was naturally too short, which necessitated a quick amputation of the original morcilla) in the meantime. Eventually everyone was ready to go so we piled our costumes, masks, bladders, and selves into two cars and headed to Ensanche Bermudez, the barrio that was supposed to be our carnival site for the day. I was looking forward to it, because I always like these barrio events more than the big parade on Las Carreras – less crowded, more comfortable, and seeing something different every time.
After driving around the neighborhood a couple of times and seeing no one, though, it seemed unlikely that any carnival was going on. I suggested maybe the wires had gotten crossed and it was really Ensanche Bolivar, so we checked there too on our way back, but nothing. So that was it: a big buildup and no payoff, just like last Sunday only sunnier. The next day someone told me they’d decided to cancel it because it fell on Valentine’s Day. What kind of a retarded reason is that?!
Anyway, there was nothing for it. Instead I went to the bookstore to check out the selection and enjoy a fancy coffee beverage. Then I went home to sleep it off and prepare for what would hopefully be an actual carnival the next day.
On Sunday, once the email had been read, I was ready to give it another go. But first, I had an appointment with Los Reyes del Mambo, the carnival group run out of Ensanche Bolivar by Carlos Batista. He claimed the kids in his group really knew the lechon kind of dance (or “rhythmic steps”, as some would prefer) so I was going to film them doing it. My instructions were to get dropped off at the “colmadon” and someone would meet me there. My fellow passengers expressed concern over this plan, after having ascertained that I wasn’t really going to the church nearby. “Now, you’re sure you have your friend’s number? Call him as soon as we get there!” I assured htem I would, and indeed I did, and a few minutes later Carlos’s son, also named Carlos but considerably smaller, showed up to accompany me to their house, which was actually less than a block away. Also, it was easy to recognize by the three yellow upside-down lechon masks propped on sticks in the front yard, and the whips, recently painted blue, drying on the clothesline. Also, everyone present was dressed in their team t-shirts, an attractive blue color with grey trim and the Reyes mascot on the back – a little man designed after an Incan mask.So the Kings of Mambo are really Incan kings!
In fact, Carlos the younger and a cousin of his did dance for me in two forms, which Carlos referred to as “traditional” and “modern,” and both with and without whips. Then Carlos gave me a little explanation on video of the limping movement and the changes in style. I took a look at their costumes, which also figure the little Incan guy on the back (later on they added a body to him, which is clothed in a Henry VIII type fur-trimmed robe). I would have liked to stay longer, but I was worried about keeping my own group waiting for me so I hitched a ride back down to Betania’s. Where, naturally, everyone was standing around waiting. Well, not exactly standing around: Julio was repainting and re-glittering masks, Betania was sewing something, Katiry’s boyfriend was gluing bells, our newest female member was dancing, and some teenagers were teaching others how to use the whip or to move like a lechon. This I filmed, and then one of them took over as narrator of my film and took me around to look at and explain all the carnival accountrements that could be found in and around the yard.
Eventually, somehow, we all got dressed and ready to go – well, six of us were in costume; the other two weren’t quite ready with theirs yet and will join next week Then we set off through the streets of Pueblo Nuevo, just like old times. The strange thing is, I can never quite remember how to move like a lechon until I put on the mask and hear some music. That, and seeing other lechones, somehow allows my body to find the right moves again. And once I start,. it’s actually hard to stop until I take the mask off again. There’s something comforting about having the mask on, even if it is stiflingly hot and sweaty inside, and something horribly lame about just standing around in the street with all this get-up on. I had one vejiga in each hand – the third one I’d bought had mysteriously deflated in the interim – which eeps my hands comfortably occupied and also reminds me to keep my elbows up (something I’d been told lechones should always do).
Wearing the mask gives you license to act a little wacky (granted, some lechones don’t need a mask, or license, for that). But some people like Julio, who are relatively staid in everyday life, become surprisingly energetic and funny inside the costume. Julio was coming up with all kinds of fancy footwork and even doing leg-only jumping jacks while dressed up, to the amusement of onlookers. My narrator usually does more comically sexual moves, like those one might see on a dance floot when reggeton is playing, and this is always a crowd favorite. I tend toward a more bouncy, skipping kind of merengue with a little bit of limp, although I often switch to typical palos movements when they play Eneroliza, which they always do. (It seems to me that the same exact carnival songs have been used every year that I’ve participated: Baile en la Calle, a medley of palos and salve sung by Eneroliza, a few other things. This year there was also a reggaeton number and a nonsense merengue approaching quebradita in its rhythm. And on the way home, with our masks off, they played some merengue típico and then a set of all reggaeton or hiphop, possibly to take us back down with slower beats.)
Once I get going, I eventually get into the zone, where you’re not quite sure how much time has passed and you’re not really thinking about anything in particular. It’s whenever I stop to think about it that I get tired and think about how much sweat is running down my shirt inside my costume, how hot the sun is and how my costume just soaks it right up, how my feet or my knee are kind of hurting, how the music is way too loud and it makes my head pound, and how it’s hard to breathe in there. Every so often, though, you get a short break when an assistant brings you a little plastic pouch of cold water from the bed of the “disco lite.” In past years, there would be some rum going around too, but this year only one person had any and not much, and one beer made the rounds at one point. You wouldn’t want to drink too much because of dehybration, but you do want to drink a little, to give yourself the energy to keep on going.
While I move along, I watch the spectators and they watch me. Many are taking films or photos with cell phones or cameras. If they want a photo, we’re supposed to pose in a typical lechon style. Sometimes they want us to hold babies, and the babies aren’t always too sure about this. Sometimes they want us to shake a kid’s hand, or to dance with them. I like the feeling of anonymity inside the mask. Most of the time, no one knows I’m not Dominican, although sometimes when someone gets a straight shot and can look straight into the mask and see my eyes, I notice a look of surprise. Also, it would help to have gloves to cover up my blindingly white and clearly female hands. I might work on that later. Some spectators are more malicious and want to through confetti straight into your mask, into your mouth if they can manage it, so you have to watch out for them too. I don’t usually whack people with the bladders, although this is the traditional thing to do, but some people specifically ask you to and then I try to oblige.
At any rate, this is how it is on Las Carreras. Before that, our spectators are peoplpe standing in the doorways of their houses or on streetcorners by the colmados, or even families packed onto little motorbikes and temporarily stopped to take a look. Old women sitting on the sidewalk raise up their arms and move to the music along with us as we pass. And afterwards, we make our way home through the same streets, now unmasked and relaxed as we cool off – by this time, night is just faling. Random people from the neighborhood join us, following along behind our isco lite and singing or dancing along. One nattily dressed transvestite comes along, standing right by the speakers. He is in a blue sequined dress that barely reached the tops of his thighs, a long wig and red heels. He is accompanied by a small girl in a lechon costume -- his daughter? At one point she asks me, wordlessly, to fix her stuck zipper. When I do, she runs back up to join him again.
So finally, with the month half over, we had one real carnival day. I’m a little worried by rumors that there may not be any carnival on Feb 27 this year. Apparently, some dorky church people are complaining that combining carnival with independence day ruins the “solemnity” of the latter, or some such ridiculous thing. No matter that this has been the tradition for a zillion years now, and that without it, independence day would just be any other boring state holiday, in which the people do not in any way participate. How is that what they want? And how is it up to the church how a national holiday should be celebrated? This is one of the stupidest things I’d ever heard and I’ll be really mad if they actually succeed.
In the meantime, I must report, I had to cancel my job interview in California - - because I got a job offer!! Details to come. All the better not to have to interrupt fieldwork or to prepare three talks. Unfortunately, I’d already been shopping for interview clothes, not an easy task for me. They did come in handy at the tertulia, though.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Carnival cancelled!!
2/2-2/8
The next week went on much the same as the previous: meetings and reading at the Centro Leon interspersed with a few interviews. These interviews included follow-ups with some people I’d interviewed years before, but this time I needed to ask them questions specifically about the dances and movements of carnival in order to prepare for my upcoming tertulia on the topica. So I went back to talk with Sergio “Mochila Hijo” once again, now in an internet center where he sometimes works, and with Raudy Torres in his home. The two of them are the best-known Roba La Gallinas in Santiago – this being a typical transvestite character of carnival here – but the first falls within the “traditional” category and the second within the “fantasy.” Some say the first is the Roba La Gallina of the barrios, and the second, of the upper classes. I also interviewed Carlos, head of the group of lechones of Pueblo Nuevo called Los Reyes del Mambo, in his place of work: a sign- and banner-making shop behind the Pueblo Nuevo market.
The next task at hand was to prepare my costume for Sunday’s carnival. The tailor was supposed to have finished it by Saturday, giving me enough time to stick on all the bells and mirrors it still lacked. Naturally, things didn’t work out that way. On Friday, he still was not finished, so I couldn’t give it the final lookover. On Saturday, also no word. But I did hear from Luc, the Frenchman of Samaná, that he wanted to come to Santiago to experience some culture, so I invited him to join Los Confraternos for the day. (He didn’t know it yet, but he would certainly be put to work filming.)
Well, when I went to Tonito’s on Sunday around noon, it started pouring rain again, as it had been doing most of the week, and we couldn’t find the tailor. Tonito went out in search of the costume and brought it back, but there was just no way I was going to be able to wear it that day. There was no elastic at the wrists or ankles, the sloppy edges of the design were sticking out and needed to be trimmed, more trim was needed to fill in empty spots, and one design element was on upside down! Also, the top was cut way too big for me so I had football shoulders, but that is just the way it’s going to be, I guess. At least the design I’d come up with did indeed look cool – or it would when finished. I worked on some of the trimming as we waited for the tailor to come by so I could discuss this stuff with him, but by 3:30 he still hadn’t shown, I didn’t know where Tonito was, and I was worried the group would leave without me, so I hotfooted it down to Betanias.
Where they told me that carnival had been officially cancelled for the day.
First time that has happened in my four years of carnival. Bad luck for me, as it meant I’d lose one of my five research days, and bad luck for Luc, since he didn’t get to see any Santiago culture after all. I gave up, did some shopping, and ate my first yaroa – a kind of Santiago street food belly bomb made of mashed sweet plantains smothered in cheese and Dominican special sauce. Better luck next week…
The next week went on much the same as the previous: meetings and reading at the Centro Leon interspersed with a few interviews. These interviews included follow-ups with some people I’d interviewed years before, but this time I needed to ask them questions specifically about the dances and movements of carnival in order to prepare for my upcoming tertulia on the topica. So I went back to talk with Sergio “Mochila Hijo” once again, now in an internet center where he sometimes works, and with Raudy Torres in his home. The two of them are the best-known Roba La Gallinas in Santiago – this being a typical transvestite character of carnival here – but the first falls within the “traditional” category and the second within the “fantasy.” Some say the first is the Roba La Gallina of the barrios, and the second, of the upper classes. I also interviewed Carlos, head of the group of lechones of Pueblo Nuevo called Los Reyes del Mambo, in his place of work: a sign- and banner-making shop behind the Pueblo Nuevo market.
The next task at hand was to prepare my costume for Sunday’s carnival. The tailor was supposed to have finished it by Saturday, giving me enough time to stick on all the bells and mirrors it still lacked. Naturally, things didn’t work out that way. On Friday, he still was not finished, so I couldn’t give it the final lookover. On Saturday, also no word. But I did hear from Luc, the Frenchman of Samaná, that he wanted to come to Santiago to experience some culture, so I invited him to join Los Confraternos for the day. (He didn’t know it yet, but he would certainly be put to work filming.)
Well, when I went to Tonito’s on Sunday around noon, it started pouring rain again, as it had been doing most of the week, and we couldn’t find the tailor. Tonito went out in search of the costume and brought it back, but there was just no way I was going to be able to wear it that day. There was no elastic at the wrists or ankles, the sloppy edges of the design were sticking out and needed to be trimmed, more trim was needed to fill in empty spots, and one design element was on upside down! Also, the top was cut way too big for me so I had football shoulders, but that is just the way it’s going to be, I guess. At least the design I’d come up with did indeed look cool – or it would when finished. I worked on some of the trimming as we waited for the tailor to come by so I could discuss this stuff with him, but by 3:30 he still hadn’t shown, I didn’t know where Tonito was, and I was worried the group would leave without me, so I hotfooted it down to Betanias.
Where they told me that carnival had been officially cancelled for the day.
First time that has happened in my four years of carnival. Bad luck for me, as it meant I’d lose one of my five research days, and bad luck for Luc, since he didn’t get to see any Santiago culture after all. I gave up, did some shopping, and ate my first yaroa – a kind of Santiago street food belly bomb made of mashed sweet plantains smothered in cheese and Dominican special sauce. Better luck next week…
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Carnival begins!
The next day was a holiday, Juan Pablo Duarte day, so there wasn’t much to be done but sleep in and do laundry. But after making a bunch of phone calls arranging appointments for the week, I decide to go visit my carnival group in the afternoon.
I find Betania at her sewing machine, sewing gold borders onto diamonds made of sequiny fabric, and the whole conjunction onto a foundation made of neon orange satin. This year things have changed, she says, and we can only go out in old costumes for one week. Thus my hopes of getting out of investing in a new one (I’m a bit broke myself) and revamping last year’s are dashed. Her daughter Katiry is going to dress up for the first time in my memory, although she tells me she did so the year before I joined, as well as her new boyfriend. Another teenage girl is joining as well, so our group seems to be becoming female-dominated, perhaps the only one to be so.
The sad part is that Tonito, who is probably our best lechon – a good dancer, enthusiastic, strong, and good with the whip – is not dressing up this year because of his own economic situation, he says. But it seems to be more than that, some internal politics perhaps. He refuses even to go out the first week in an old costume. Maurice suggests accidentally buying too much fabric when I go to buy the sequins for my own costume, but I’m not sure even this measure will solve the impasse.
After a conversation with Betania, I then head over to Tonito’s, where a surprise was in store: the streets had been paved in the entire barrio! This is really incredible, because I can never forget my poor little car getting entirely flooded there in the rain and mud one time, and all of us having to join together to bail it out and get the mud off the rugs. My own carnival finances seem to be in order, we find after going over the numbers for the money I sent versus the money spent on getting my mask made and my new costume cut out (I’d forgot we’d even done this last year). When I give out my meager gifts this year – since most of them were in the lost back – I accidentally incite a small riot among the neighborhood kids over the sharing of the Haribo gummies.
Tonito gives me a ride home in his newish car, the apparent cause of the current economic difficulties, and introduces me to the Yaroa, a related or possibly antecedent concept to the Naboa, only made of potato and more expensive. We didn’t stop to try it yet, though.
On Tuesday it was back to the grindstone. The rest of the week continued in mostly the same way: visits to the library at the Centro Leon to read about carnival or listen to recordings, meetings with various personnel at the Centro Leon about ethnomusicological projects in the works, phone calls to set up interviews or invite people to my upcoming program. On the dance front, I interviewed two well-regarded merengue típico dancers, and on the carnival front, I bought fabric for my costume and attended the MOSACA meeting – the organization to which my group of lechones, Los Confraternos, belong. There I saw many of the usual suspects I knew from past years of carnival: delegates from Los Reyes and Los Comanches, the strange woman with too much makeup who dresses up as the bear Nicolas Den-Den, Angelo the mask-maker, and Polanquito, the 70+ bundle of energy. I invited him to participate in my program as a representative lechon and he acquiesced. I just hope he remembers since he apparently has no phone and never even stays in one place, so can’t be reached by phone or even sought out, unless he’s wanting to be found.
So on and so on until Saturday, when I took a break from the Mediateca in order to work on my costume. All afternoon, poor Tonito helped me iron backing onto shiny sequined fabric and cut it into the squares and triangles demanded by my design, which I based on a Cuban abakua dancer’s costume. Then again on Sunday, more of the same, as the tailor asked us to stick all the pieces of the design on the costume before giving it to him. it turned out to be just as well to have something to do: it was pouring rain all morning and the early afternoon, so many groups had decided not to go out at all, and my plans to meet with and film the group Los Reyes thus fell through. After delivering the pieces of my costume to the tailor I went over to Betanias’ to find out if the Confraternos were going out. They said they were since the “Disco Lite” (truck stacked full of enormous speakers) was already there, but were just going to wait til the rain let up a bit. Eventually, surprisingly, it actually did for a while. Instead of costumes, we wore our official group t-shirts (sponsored by Tucan paints).
This year is supposed to have a “new concept” of carnival, combining the now-vanished tradition of lechones gathering in parks with the new tradition of the parade. They have deteremined that there will be nine carnival “zones” in which lechones from different barrios will do some merry-making before joining the route, which, they say, will include Calle El Sol, the old route, with Las Carreras, the new one. It seemed an interesting idea, but this week, at least, it didn’t happen – maybe because of the rain, maybe because of habit. This week it was the usual – out from our homebase in Pueblo Nuevo, down to Las Hermanas Mirabal, under the bridge to Las Carreras, up to the monument and a U-turn to go back down the other lane (strangely, we did follow traffic directions and stay to the right). On the way, whenever we got stuck, I filmed neighboring lechones or the many groups of small, unaccompanied boys with whips who were trying out their moves along the way. They were pretty good – but where were their parents?? On the other end of the scale was an adorable little girl in a lechon outfit, gripping her cowboy-hatted father tightly by the hand at all times. Her father was happy when I wanted to take her picture, but she wasn’t. On the way back, I stopped to buy a whip and some very stinky bladders for next week’s event, forcing my entire group and our Disco Lite to stop in an underpass for 15 minutes while a kid ran to get my order for me. Then I was stuck with the stink all the way home. At least I also had the Disco Lite.
I find Betania at her sewing machine, sewing gold borders onto diamonds made of sequiny fabric, and the whole conjunction onto a foundation made of neon orange satin. This year things have changed, she says, and we can only go out in old costumes for one week. Thus my hopes of getting out of investing in a new one (I’m a bit broke myself) and revamping last year’s are dashed. Her daughter Katiry is going to dress up for the first time in my memory, although she tells me she did so the year before I joined, as well as her new boyfriend. Another teenage girl is joining as well, so our group seems to be becoming female-dominated, perhaps the only one to be so.
The sad part is that Tonito, who is probably our best lechon – a good dancer, enthusiastic, strong, and good with the whip – is not dressing up this year because of his own economic situation, he says. But it seems to be more than that, some internal politics perhaps. He refuses even to go out the first week in an old costume. Maurice suggests accidentally buying too much fabric when I go to buy the sequins for my own costume, but I’m not sure even this measure will solve the impasse.
After a conversation with Betania, I then head over to Tonito’s, where a surprise was in store: the streets had been paved in the entire barrio! This is really incredible, because I can never forget my poor little car getting entirely flooded there in the rain and mud one time, and all of us having to join together to bail it out and get the mud off the rugs. My own carnival finances seem to be in order, we find after going over the numbers for the money I sent versus the money spent on getting my mask made and my new costume cut out (I’d forgot we’d even done this last year). When I give out my meager gifts this year – since most of them were in the lost back – I accidentally incite a small riot among the neighborhood kids over the sharing of the Haribo gummies.
Tonito gives me a ride home in his newish car, the apparent cause of the current economic difficulties, and introduces me to the Yaroa, a related or possibly antecedent concept to the Naboa, only made of potato and more expensive. We didn’t stop to try it yet, though.
On Tuesday it was back to the grindstone. The rest of the week continued in mostly the same way: visits to the library at the Centro Leon to read about carnival or listen to recordings, meetings with various personnel at the Centro Leon about ethnomusicological projects in the works, phone calls to set up interviews or invite people to my upcoming program. On the dance front, I interviewed two well-regarded merengue típico dancers, and on the carnival front, I bought fabric for my costume and attended the MOSACA meeting – the organization to which my group of lechones, Los Confraternos, belong. There I saw many of the usual suspects I knew from past years of carnival: delegates from Los Reyes and Los Comanches, the strange woman with too much makeup who dresses up as the bear Nicolas Den-Den, Angelo the mask-maker, and Polanquito, the 70+ bundle of energy. I invited him to participate in my program as a representative lechon and he acquiesced. I just hope he remembers since he apparently has no phone and never even stays in one place, so can’t be reached by phone or even sought out, unless he’s wanting to be found.
So on and so on until Saturday, when I took a break from the Mediateca in order to work on my costume. All afternoon, poor Tonito helped me iron backing onto shiny sequined fabric and cut it into the squares and triangles demanded by my design, which I based on a Cuban abakua dancer’s costume. Then again on Sunday, more of the same, as the tailor asked us to stick all the pieces of the design on the costume before giving it to him. it turned out to be just as well to have something to do: it was pouring rain all morning and the early afternoon, so many groups had decided not to go out at all, and my plans to meet with and film the group Los Reyes thus fell through. After delivering the pieces of my costume to the tailor I went over to Betanias’ to find out if the Confraternos were going out. They said they were since the “Disco Lite” (truck stacked full of enormous speakers) was already there, but were just going to wait til the rain let up a bit. Eventually, surprisingly, it actually did for a while. Instead of costumes, we wore our official group t-shirts (sponsored by Tucan paints).
This year is supposed to have a “new concept” of carnival, combining the now-vanished tradition of lechones gathering in parks with the new tradition of the parade. They have deteremined that there will be nine carnival “zones” in which lechones from different barrios will do some merry-making before joining the route, which, they say, will include Calle El Sol, the old route, with Las Carreras, the new one. It seemed an interesting idea, but this week, at least, it didn’t happen – maybe because of the rain, maybe because of habit. This week it was the usual – out from our homebase in Pueblo Nuevo, down to Las Hermanas Mirabal, under the bridge to Las Carreras, up to the monument and a U-turn to go back down the other lane (strangely, we did follow traffic directions and stay to the right). On the way, whenever we got stuck, I filmed neighboring lechones or the many groups of small, unaccompanied boys with whips who were trying out their moves along the way. They were pretty good – but where were their parents?? On the other end of the scale was an adorable little girl in a lechon outfit, gripping her cowboy-hatted father tightly by the hand at all times. Her father was happy when I wanted to take her picture, but she wasn’t. On the way back, I stopped to buy a whip and some very stinky bladders for next week’s event, forcing my entire group and our Disco Lite to stop in an underpass for 15 minutes while a kid ran to get my order for me. Then I was stuck with the stink all the way home. At least I also had the Disco Lite.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
New to the blog?
So I was thinking, some of you may be new readers, and if you are, you may have no idea about what the deal is with my blog. This should bring you up to speed.
I'm an ethnomusicologist working in Latin American music and dance. I have been researching Dominican merengue tipico for six years and am now in the midst of the horrific process of writing up that research in the form of a dissertation. That, and procrastinating a lot by taking on other projects and drinking lots of beer.
Merengue tipico is the traditional kind of merengue from the northern Cibao region of the Dominican Republic. It is very different from the kind of big band/pop merengue you may have heard on the radio in instrumentation, rhythm, and repertoire. It's based around the accordion and uses several different rhythms, some highly syncopated, unlike the monorhythmic pop merengue, and is an oral tradition that incorporates improvisation, unlike orquesta merengue, which relies on written arrangements. If you want to know more about merengue tipico, you should be able to find most of what you'd need on my web site: http://merengue-ripiao.com
If you want the quick version of tipico and orquesta history, read what I wrote for this small record label: http://www.iasorecords.com/merengue.cfm
I started the blog when I moved to the Dominican Republic in 2005 as a way to document my research and other activities and get out of writing icky field notes. If you look back over the course of the blog you will see pictures and stories about merengue tipico in different contexts: in ranchos and car washes in the city of Santiago, in parties in people's houses, etc. You'll also hear about how I learned to play it on accordion and the various places I've performed.
While in the DR I got involved in several other projects as well. Being the only person yet granted access to the complete papers of Fradique Lizardo, the late Dominican folklorist, I got interested in his research on Dominican folk dance and how he started the Ballet Folklorico Dominicano, so I observed current ballet folklorico groups in different parts of the country and talked to dancers.
I also got interested in carnival - how could you not? - and joined a carnival group called Los Confraternos in Pueblo Nuevo, a Santiago barrio. I dressed up as a lechon, Santiago's traditional carnival character, with them and went through the grueling parades every Sunday through carnival season in both 2006 and 2007. If you are interested in seeing pictures of carnival, visit my posts from February of both years, as well as late January and early March (carnival lasts a long time in the DR). This year I also tried to visit other carnivals for comparative purposes, so you can also see pictures from La Vega and Cotui in February-March 2007.
My other research site is New York City, where there is a very active tipico scene, particularly in Brooklyn. Since the bulk of my NY research was done between 2001 and 2004, you won't see much of it here, but I have paid some return visits. You'll find chunks about NY tipico from June-July and October 2007, and at other random points.
When I'm not in the DR, I'm usually in Tucson, AZ, or traveling about randomly. Since tipico doesn't make much of an appearance outside of the DR and New York, when I'm away I usually post stuff random stuff from my tipico files or other observations about Dominican culture. I try to post at least once a week. Please subscribe to the feed if you want to be sure not to miss anything!
That's the blog in a nutshell. If you have any suggestions for accordion, tipico, or Dominican-themed topics you'd like me to write about, please post them here!
I'm an ethnomusicologist working in Latin American music and dance. I have been researching Dominican merengue tipico for six years and am now in the midst of the horrific process of writing up that research in the form of a dissertation. That, and procrastinating a lot by taking on other projects and drinking lots of beer.
Merengue tipico is the traditional kind of merengue from the northern Cibao region of the Dominican Republic. It is very different from the kind of big band/pop merengue you may have heard on the radio in instrumentation, rhythm, and repertoire. It's based around the accordion and uses several different rhythms, some highly syncopated, unlike the monorhythmic pop merengue, and is an oral tradition that incorporates improvisation, unlike orquesta merengue, which relies on written arrangements. If you want to know more about merengue tipico, you should be able to find most of what you'd need on my web site: http://merengue-ripiao.com
If you want the quick version of tipico and orquesta history, read what I wrote for this small record label: http://www.iasorecords.com/merengue.cfm
I started the blog when I moved to the Dominican Republic in 2005 as a way to document my research and other activities and get out of writing icky field notes. If you look back over the course of the blog you will see pictures and stories about merengue tipico in different contexts: in ranchos and car washes in the city of Santiago, in parties in people's houses, etc. You'll also hear about how I learned to play it on accordion and the various places I've performed.
While in the DR I got involved in several other projects as well. Being the only person yet granted access to the complete papers of Fradique Lizardo, the late Dominican folklorist, I got interested in his research on Dominican folk dance and how he started the Ballet Folklorico Dominicano, so I observed current ballet folklorico groups in different parts of the country and talked to dancers.
I also got interested in carnival - how could you not? - and joined a carnival group called Los Confraternos in Pueblo Nuevo, a Santiago barrio. I dressed up as a lechon, Santiago's traditional carnival character, with them and went through the grueling parades every Sunday through carnival season in both 2006 and 2007. If you are interested in seeing pictures of carnival, visit my posts from February of both years, as well as late January and early March (carnival lasts a long time in the DR). This year I also tried to visit other carnivals for comparative purposes, so you can also see pictures from La Vega and Cotui in February-March 2007.
My other research site is New York City, where there is a very active tipico scene, particularly in Brooklyn. Since the bulk of my NY research was done between 2001 and 2004, you won't see much of it here, but I have paid some return visits. You'll find chunks about NY tipico from June-July and October 2007, and at other random points.
When I'm not in the DR, I'm usually in Tucson, AZ, or traveling about randomly. Since tipico doesn't make much of an appearance outside of the DR and New York, when I'm away I usually post stuff random stuff from my tipico files or other observations about Dominican culture. I try to post at least once a week. Please subscribe to the feed if you want to be sure not to miss anything!
That's the blog in a nutshell. If you have any suggestions for accordion, tipico, or Dominican-themed topics you'd like me to write about, please post them here!
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