Passa Passa: a wicked night at a Jamaican Street Dance
- Lisa Camille Robinson
- Jun 28, 2016
- 2 min read
The mouth-watering smell of spiced grilled meat entwine with clouds of marijuana smoke to saturate the night air. A dreadlocked man walks past holding six bushels of the plant for sale. To my right a buxom woman, wearing neon pink tights and huge gold earrings, gyrates slowly on the crotch of an intoxicated man holding her hips with one hand and a cold Red Stripe beer in the other. The DJ turns up a popular tune and the crowd sashays in formation to the same dance move, like a practiced choreography.
It’s my first time here and I am mesmerised.
I had heard of “Passa Passa” before. The weekly inner-city street dance that turns a busy urban road into an open-air dancehall had become a legend in Kingston, Jamaica. Sanctioned by the unofficial area leader, “The Don”, it uses music and dance to bring peace and profits to this ghetto community. Before 2003, Tivoli would have been a dangerous place to be at any time of day. But now at 3am on a Thursday, there is a crowd that features the myriad of Jamaica's populace: from rough-neck youth to ‘uptown’ Kingstonians, to Japanese tourists and famous artistes.
As I walk through curiously, vendors hawking treats from corn to candy try to get my attention. But I’m transfixed by the women: Their voluptuous curves beg to break free from tight “batty rider” shorts and scanty tops, markers of the dancehall style that require a level of stratospheric confidence innate to Jamaican women. Their bottoms bounce intricately on tempo, as they compete to show-off who has mastery of the latest dance craze.
I lean against one of the towers of speaker boxes that frame the circular space; the DJ is in my line of sight. His makeshift booth juts out of what in the daylight hours is a tuck shop. I marvel as he marshals the crowd by shouting expletive-laden commentary in Patois, Jamaica’s dialect, and plays a crafted mix of dancehall and reggae that keeps the hypnotic energy high. I’m glad I know the moves to the next song. I step in sync with the man beside me. A moment ago he was a stranger, but now as we move, we smile and share a moment. It dawns on me that herein lies the power of “Passa Passa” – it mixes people who normally never would, enveloping them in an intoxicating all-night romp of music, movement and some-other intangible magic.
It’s 9am when the crowds start to thin.
I reluctantly head to my car with a beat still pulsing through my veins, the taste of jerk chicken on my lips and the sway of that last dance in my body.
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