I skimmed the article provided above and this quote "African Boot Dance, from which stepping derives, has its seeds deeply planted in political and social oppression. " spoke to me. Essentially, anytime that people were enslaved, oppressed etc. their oppressors tried to take away their dance, culture, language, what have you and those peoples were forced to become resourceful, in order to preserve their dance and culture, without their oppressors "catching on" as to what was going on.
The roots of the Brazilian dance "Capoeira" (pronounced cap-where-uh) are similar. I believe that enslaved people from Africa were in Brazil and they were forbidden to practice their self defence and fighting. So they "hid" their moves in a dance called Capoeira. A quick search on the net should yield more fruit.
Therefore, the common theme throughout is that anytime that people were oppressed or prevented from expressing themselves "freely", those people
became resourceful and creative and found ways to express themselves, without their oppressors actually realizing it.
Another example:
I visited a now-closed prison near in Fremantle Perth, Australia. (
http://www.fremantleprison.com.au/ )
The prisoners were NOT allowed to talk to each other. They were also separated by compartmentalized seating in church services held at the prison. So how did they communicate with each other? In church, during the singing of hymns, instead of singing the words, they would sing introductions to each other, as to what their name was, where they were from, etc. Ingenious? Perhaps? Resourceful and innovative? Definitely.
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