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The dangers of erotic dancing

Posted by Georgia on December 21, 2005 at 1:28 pm.

Just when I thought life in this place couldn’t get any weirder, Nicholas posts the following at the Caribbean Beat Blog:

This email arrived yesterday–I’ve left out the writer’s name, but otherwise it’s verbatim:

I from South Africa and I would like to attend the next Trinidad & Tabago carnival.

I am very interested in "wining". Can you please explain to me how it is done. Or perhaps send me a video clipping, or refer me to a website address, which has video clippings of "wining"

Hmm–video footage would certainly give a better idea than a written description. . . .

Wining, for those who don’t know, is one of several ways – some would say the only way – of dancing to calypso and soca music, and, according to this case study – deliciously entitled “Fractured Tibia & Fibula Due To Erotic Dancing: A Trinidad Experience” – it can be injurious to your health.

But wait – there’s more: one of the authors of the article is Dr. Vijay Narinesingh, the Trinidadian surgeon who was freed of the charge of murdering his wife in a preliminary inquiry last March (have looked for a good link to this story but can’t find one). Prominently displayed on the web site is a photograph of Dr. Narinesingh demonstrating the movements the subject was probably making when the injury occurred, captioned “Figure 2: “Wining” with downward swaying movements of his legs towards the ground”.

Rare are the moments when I regret having abandoned the idea of a career in medicine, but this was certainly one of them.

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  • Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Trinidad and Tobago: Wining says:
    21/12/2005 at 11:20 pm

    [...] Some of us prepare for a vacation by poring over travel books, but not the South African tourist who wrote to Caribbean Beat magazine requesting information on “wining” (the gyrating dance Caribbean people do to soca and calypso music – an inability to do it properly is one of the markers of foreignness). As Nicholas Laughlin remarks on the Caribbean Beat Blog, “Video footage would certainly give a better idea than a written description.” Caribbean Free Radio continues the discussion by pointing to an actual medical case study of a wining-related injury co-written by a Trinidadian surgeon who, earlier this year, was freed of the charge of murdering his wife. The same surgeon is pictured in the article demonstrating the action which may have led to the injury. [...]

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