Limbo Dance Essay

The poem, Limbo, by Edward Kamau focuses on the West Indian dance and how people only see it as a dance and not a historic symbol with an emotional connection to it. Based on one’s culture, not all people will interpret things the same way. In this case, not everybody will view the limbo dance as a symbolic dance with lots of history behind it because of where, when, and how people were raised. Their culture doesn’t view it any different than just a dance. To Edward Kamau’s culture, the limbo dance symbolizes the transatlantic trip that African slaves had to go through to get the West Indian lands through a ship.
The limbo dance recollects the emotions felt during the trip and the body positions African slaves were in while in the bottom
Edward Kamau, being of Caribbean culture, captured probably the most important aspects of the limbo dance and its interpretations. He talked about the basic movements in the limbo dance and the sounds heard, but behind every line was a different understanding towards it. Different readers can misinterpret the poem and think it’s just any regular poem about the dance but it actually explains to you the origin and the cultural background behind this popular dance. A lot of cultures are hidden or diluted by the lack of interest given to them or the lack of importance associated to them. The limbo dance has such a huge cultural background behind it but the lack of importance people give it hides that history behind it. People only associating it to a dance where they only have fun is what dilutes the culture. Edward Kamau tries to get people to acknowledge the culture behind the dance and how amazing it is that even though people of his culture had to go through such tough events, were able to make good of it and convert it into a symbolic dance representing their culture and at the same time joy from the people