Come on everybody, clap your hands
Oh, you're looking good
I'm gonna sing my song, it won't take long
Come on, let's twist again like we did last summer
Yeah, let's twist again like we did last year
Do you remember when things were really hummin'?
Yeah, let's twist again, twistin' time is here
 |
| Chobby Checkker |
Oh, baby, make me know you love me so and then
Twist again like we did last summer
Come on, let's twist again lik
(Instrumental)
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Nikita was turning 14 maybe when twist dance became so popular in Port-au-P, Haiti that every teenager prided himself by twisting. At this time, JFK's America was still a wonderful land we're dreaming of, let alone that France whose growns up kept the language like a war trophee. Haiti had been displaying a rural like touch even tough wealthy and famous were launching what over the years would have ended up modernizing this country. But by then, life even traditional was worth living.
Twist dance came home. There was no farewell to merengue and the new beat of compas. However, as the Haitian society were at a turning point withall kind of conflicts, class, color, religion and language, youths escape by imitating overseas'life in dancing, singing and dressing, save that the identity crisis didn't prevent the very country from finding out its own exit.
Nikita told me she was a fan of Les Copains at Radio Haiti. Later on, she was rather delighted at listening to Gerard Duvperil from Jazz des Jeunes. The late Dupervil will tell us that Des jeunes was the watch dog of the Haitian soul and traditions. But, looking back at those years, nobody seemed to have thought at the turmoil of our times. we're blind on ourselves and people that used to make our daily landscape.
Twist Again was then the hit hop that resounded a lot from City Club and Macaya, those brothel of the struggling middle class in down town suburbs. Never did pretty girls like Nikita wander that far. Alix Chalmers, a school mate of the fall 1963 was thinking twice about that. Nevertheless, when I felt smart enough to ask myself what it's true about this volatile mindset of our fellows, I am even today convinced that we miss a golden opportunity to see the world,our world as it is.
Twist Again was driving everyone crazy, even the American president John F. Kennedy. His wife Jacky used to dance in a childish way this dance born among Black Americans from the South. In Haiti, before bese bas from Tabou Gombo, every one was twisting. At Rex Theatre, Les Copains came with a kind of Elvis Presley singer that threw himself on ground ending his singing " Every body in Haiti was imitating somebody overseas" concluded the author of One day for the hunter one day for the prey, Gage Averill.University of Chicago Press, 1997
The government at this time was aware of this on going crisis in the youth. As time went on, the Elvis Presley fans switched very soon to mini-jazz, after so many avatars: Les vampires, Les Corvington, Les Mordus .... A cultural revolution was unfolding, the Haitian soul was at the risk of vanishing away...But, it is no secret that nature is what it is.
Nikita doesn't twist any longer. Time has changed. This change of guard implies a change of heart. Chobby Checkker, the twist king, got some fat in the belly. The sixties are gone and the girls we were gazing at went to church every morning,pacing uneasily overcrowded streets. My friend Alix Chalmers is cursing this fading era when Nikita and the likes were the queen of the hearts.
Et maintenant ?
Guess what: Nikita had escaped to the Recul, Camp Perrin
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