Re: slogan translations wanted

Peter Renzland (peter@renzland.org)
Mon, 21 Mar 1994 03:08:17 -0500

> Matthew Katinsky of Madison, Wisconsin, is trying to get as many ways of
> saying the expression, "Shut up and dance!" Matthew is a dancer in
> Wisconsin. However, he only has two languages listed as native American
> languages. He said that ANY LANGUAGE IS FINE, no matter how obscure or
> remote. He's encouraging natives to send in their translations in
> whatever language they are familiar with. (ie. Inuktitut, Cree, Ojibway,
> Apache etc,etc.) So far, Mat has 77 languages, of which 2 are american.

I would just like to say that dancers who speak English, as well as people
(who may not be dancers) who live in other cultures might be offended by this.

1. Social dancing, to many of us, is a sociable activity, and
telling someone to "shut up" is very unsociable.

2. This is very much more true in dance forms which are spiritual
in nature, and to take such a phrase from such a context and put
it on a T-shirt, which is what Matthew wants to do, as I recall,
might well be considered obscene.

I wish that Matthew had thought of something a little more positive.

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