it's a fine samba romance

So here I am listening to Billy Holiday "Fine Romance"....what a bold, beautiful song.
I tried to dance to the old Broadway tunes. Tried to remember how it carries my feet, so different to my inner sambas.
More stiff, the rhythm is there, steps go fast, yet the body stays firm.
Got it.
And then inner dramatic last pose at the end note of the musical number.
That's why all my love of cabaret is replaced with that samba hip swing. More suave. More understated.
African rhythm’s honest vibrancy is what I miss.
How dance is part of each day. How clapping hands together is the way to be welcomed inside someone's home. There in Botswana, I remember. We danced at the courtyard of an African house, part of their baby birth celebration, drunk the sorghum beer (oh, that was awful!, allowing myself to be culturally un pc!)....It was such a beautiful day. We watched the race, the biggest amusement of the week of race cars passing through the bush roads on their way to Namibia. It was the same day when I saw wild elephants for the first time on the way back through the natural reserve. Sitting on the roof of the car moving slowly towards the approaching sunset posing as a tourist with the camera, suddenly the road is crossed by a gigantic mother elephant and her two babies. The whole setting is so obvious: we are in her territory, this is not a zoo. She looks at the car slightly annoyed and slowly walks by. Stunned by her grace I simply forget that I have a camera, at least during these crucial seconds when our eyes meet. So God bless Botswana and its' rhythm when keeping secret the Okavango is becoming increasingly difficult. May all the gods keep Okavango villages smiling, may they assure that the tourists will be respectful and patient, that the hippos be wild, that the baboons remain baboons and that the Queen termite enjoys fully each one of her millions of relationships a year. May the guides ravel at the first time wild bush wonderers who let them see its beauty afresh; may the tourists recognize the guides' unique craft. Let the elephant cemeteries lie undisturbed and let the giraffes continue looking surprised.

My saudade for Botswana. My saudade for Brazil lost inside the sambas of Rio in winter time. After all, it is only after I have learned how to dance the slow, the melancholic saudade samba is when I have began to truly understand and love this dance. No other dance, for now, seems more about the feeling, pure reaction to rhythm, the comfort of dancing to sadness, the true power of catharsis in dance. Because at the core there is always the soothing rhythm of life, the very essence of the African drum. The trance like rhythm, magical rhythm, forcing your body to make the healing move. To smile in the face of life’s hardship. The music of slaves, the beauty of African call to life combined with the uprooted Portuguese tropical fado. My samba. Yes, I intend to continue to samba through life.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/mar/04/okavango-delta-floods-of-life?picture=359281783