Wining

If the music is thunder, then dancing is lightning - beautiful, striking, revolutionary.  There is meaning to the movement.  The body is in constant conversation with its past, present and future.  So what is wining?

Well, literally, wining is defined as the fast or slow thrusting or rotating of the waist and hips in a rhythmic pattern, usually performed by women and is central to the way women move to dancehall music. Wining can make you or break you (or your back if you don't know what you're doing). Through the bourgeois gaze, it is often misread as hypersexual and is one of the many markers of slackness, a term that generally signifies anything from sexual looseness to poor morals. The term slackness is also quite gendered in that it generally refers to the women. As Carolyn Cooper discusses, "a woman is slack when she behaves contrary to society's accepted definition of 'virtuous,' and chooses to express herself however and whenever she is inspired."

Wining, then, can easily be read as anti-respectability politics.  The waistline is a site of social tension, tugging at and challenging bourgeois politics by asserting that working class Afro-Jamaican women have the right to assert how they define themselves through their bodies.  Women who wine are often accused of mindlessly trying to appeal to patriarchal whims, but there has to be more to it than wanting to be visually appealing to men.  And indeed, there is.  Wining is also a way for women to channel their sensuality and a way to connect with other women.  Wining is easily a feminist project.

Dance educator, A'Keitha Carey, gives one of the most eloquent responses:

"What is it about the pelvis that allows these women to present and articulate their strength and liberation? Each of these women are not afraid of their sexuality. They are sensual and sexy, confident, assertive, and independent. They demand their suitors to look at them as they navigate their sexual interests. In terms of sexual liberation, there is a definite connection to Black, Caribbean feminism and the hip wine. There is a language that is taught in CaribFunk that encourages sexual liberation and exploration on myriad levels, this language is not often embraced. There is beauty in the body, the body is beautiful, specifically the pelvis, which is often ignored due to fear."

She argues that wining is a way that Black Caribbean women can engage with the violent histories of colonialism that have sought to reduce the Black female body to being hypersexual, grotesque and bizarre, a narrative which is still very much present in the Caribbean and across the world.  Female artists in dancehall have been trailblazers in this regard, reclaiming their bodies through the power of dance. As Carey says "these women advocate for control, embody strength, invite and critique men’s sexual game and are sexy!" But when one wines, one risks the ridicule of society. As one writer asked, "is a dance really just a dance when you risk being called a “skettel” if your mother’s friend happens to catch you bussing a mad wine at Carnival? Just as there is an aspect of freedom that comes with Caribbean dancing, there is an aspect of ongoing female oppression as well as male entitlement that’s enforced by the culture surrounding dancing. And yes, the two can exist at the same time."

Wining can also be a form of empowerment, especially for women, if you know you looking good and you have a really flexible waist and legs, you know all eyes will be on you. Other women will want to wine like you and men will want to wine with you. You will be the center of attention and that feeling can be quite empowering. What I am really trying to say is that wining is an art form and a form of communication, and like all art forms and forms of communication, it’s subject to interpretation and translation. It means different things to different people and different cultures, so for it to be generalized as only one thing is irresponsible and frankly obtuse. There are all types of wines: there is the stush wine (trying to look proper while wining, the pity wine (you feel bad for the other person), the wickedest wine (you save this for special dance partners i.e. sexy men/women), the chippin’ and wining (this you do while the music truck moving), the tired wine (your foot hurting), and the list goes on.