Salsa for Colored Girls
Today I decided to pick up For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.
I finished Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama a few days ago and was excited to have recognized a reference to this choreopoem in the middle of his memoir. Hence, I decided to pick it back up.
Man, is it filled with pain. I was getting goosebumps every few lines. I was filled with that lightening buzz of excitement you get when you are reading something so powerful that you want to pick up the phone and share it that minute. Or, maybe you want to scream. Want to run uphill so when you buckle over gasping for breath you know you are alive.And, then there were the scenes about salsa.
Having just expounded– however lightly– upon the feminine experience, the transcendence, and the dance, I was thrilled to see it creep up again. And by Ntozake no less.
From the Lady in Orange:
i brought you what joy i found & i found joy/honest fingers round my face/with dead musicians on 78’s from cuba/or live musicians on five dollar lp’s from chicago/where i have never been/& i love willie colon & arsenio rodriguez/especially cuz i can make the music loud enuf/so there is no me but dance/& when i can dance like that/there’s nothin cd hurt me/but i get tired & i haveta come offa the floor…
And then later in that same stanza:
i cdnt stand bein sorry & colored at the same time/it’s so redundant in the modern world
And later still from the Lady in Purple:
i lived wit myths & music was my ol man & i cd dance a dance outta time/ a dance wit no partners/ take my pills & keep right on steppin/ linger in non-english speakin arms so there waz no possibility of understandin…
I’m sure I will comment on this more. I just had to get those lines out there. Not sure if they carry the same weight out of the context of the poem at large. But it was almost as if I had to cleanse myself of them.
