Saying Thank You and Goodbye in Dance

Found this at Robert Krulwich's NPR blog - very moving. These kids use dance as both celebration and mourning - a ritual of loss in the East Oakland rain. Krulwich calls it "a celebration so fierce and so tender that it took my breath away" and I agree.

Thanks

November 25, 2010

by Robert Krulwich

This is the day we give thanks. That is why I want to share this video.

Four friends are gathered on a street corner in East Oakland, California, at the very spot where the half brother of one of them was killed a few days before. It's raining. They are there to remember their friend. They do this, dancing. That is their way, I guess, of saying 'thank you' to the one who is no longer there. At the end of the dance, they say thank you to each other. To them, I say thank you for a celebration so fierce and so tender that it took my breath away.

Yak Films
Source: YouTube

These dancers call themselves Turf Feinz.

They are:

• No Noize in the red jacket.

• BJ is wearing the striped shirt.

• Man has on the black jacket.

• Dreal, in the white shirt, is the half brother of Rich D, the young man who was killed.

The video was produced by YAK Films. Their website has more.

Tags: thanks, death, dance, rituals, NPR, Robert Krulwich, Thanks, East Oakland, celebration, mourning, Yak Films, Turf Feinz