Dirty dancing Jamaica style

This dance, the “dutty wine,” which takes some amount of skill is currently experiencing a surge of popularity in West Indian communities in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, as well as in this country.

This highly erotic dance is usually performed by women who move their legs like a butterfly while simultaneously rotating their neck and posterior. More skilled dancers include splits in their routine. It is generally performed to dancehall music, most often a track by Jamaican DJ Tony Matterhorn which is enjoying heavy airplay on local radio stations.

The lyrics, most of which are too sexually explicit for publication, include these lines: “Bend your back and lift your head up, Turn sideway, lift your leg up, Bend your face and twist it up, And turn true side like you know you fed up, Turn roun like you know how fi wuk, lift it up back, then you breast it up, back it up...my girl dutty wuk.”

Local response to this dance craze has been mixed. Some people have expressed concern about the suggestive body movements involved, while others are very caught up in the craze.

Singer and choreographer Wendell Manwarren of the popular group 3 Canal, told Sunday Newsday he has seen young people here doing the dutty wine.

“You wonder what the youths have inside of them, what is causing them to dance in such a violent manner,” he said.

“What we should do is introduce them to other activities because the moves they perform is good energy to harness.”

Apart from the sexually explicit moves in the dutty wine, there are claims that the dance may even be dangerous to health. There are reports out of Jamaica that a woman broke her neck while doing the dance. Some doctors have warned against the dutty wine, claiming it may cause serious muscle trauma and ligament damage.

Local physician Dr Hari Maharajh said the moves involved in the dance could damage nerves, muscles and even fracture bones.

“These violent movements can cause circulation to the head to be slowed down, which in the end can cause great complications such as morbidity and ill health,” Maharajh cautioned.

Another medical doctor, Dr Jephthath Ford said: “If you throw the body in extreme positions as in the case of the ‘dutty wine’ you could have muscle trauma, damage to your ligaments and shifting in bones.”

Jamaican orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Paul Wright agrees. He said the “dutty wine” could cause pre-morbid injury to persons.

“If the person has an existing condition and they do the dance, they could hurt themselves. They would start getting pains in their arms and shoulders,” he said.

Wright said anyone who feels discomfort “dutty wining” should stop.

“If they feel any burning or pains or what the Americans call the stinger effect they should stop.” He added, “They should not do it again because that is a warning sign.”

However, fans of this new dancehall craze shrug off warnings that it could be dangerous to their health and insisted that it is just another dance.

“The first time I tried it I did suffer from both back and neck pains but from constant practice my body has gotten accustomed. If you know you don’t eat right or exercise you should not even attempt this dance. You must also be a flexible person,” one dancehall queen said.