Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Show and Tell: Groin to Groin

Dancing Congolese

I’ve watched Congolese couples dance their slow hypnotic rumba at various dance clubs around Brazza, but last night was the first time a lithe flexible man wrapped his hands around my waist and began the seductive sway with me as his partner. The music was pumping frantically only minutes before, but when the beat wound down to a gentle sexual pulse, couples flooded the floor. It took my partner about 45 seconds to establish a hip bone connection, snug and tight, because 45 seconds was about the time I needed to match the fluid circular rhythm driving his body.

There is no distance, not even a millimeter, between the woman’s groin and the man’s groin in the Congolese rumba. The motion is one.

He pressed me closer and his dreadlocks brushed my cheek with a smooth sort of roughness smelling of cocoa butter and artistic vision. I visualized the canvases he had painted- urban graffiti abstract- and wondered what colors he would choose to represent this instant on the dance floor. Closing my eyes and embracing the moment when body, spirit, mind and heart dissolved into the sway of the night, I was dancing Congolese.

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