My one word

In most traditional African dances, there are drummers that provide the beats and dancers that perform the specific dance that accompanies the beat. There’s usually a song too that the entire group sings. All members of the performance are important. However, the drummer (sometimes drummers) clearly dominates and leads the relationship. If their tempo is quicker than normal, the dancers must speed up their dance moves to match. When there are multiple drums, if one drummer is off beat, it is evident when the dancers are not in sync.

I mention this because the other day (actually yesterday), we were divided into groups of eight to perform in dance class. I felt like during my group’s performance, the drummers were getting tired of playing the repetitious beat and as a result, their tempo was not consistent. The dancers of my group were forced to speed up and slow down our movements to match, and it made the entire group fall in and out of sync. I wasn’t thinking about this too much, until later that evening. At the end of each night, Megan and I usually end up in each other’s room to talk about the day, or to share our thoughts about anything and everything that happens to us. It’s almost like an unwritten debrief date we have set at the end of each day. Yesterday night, we were chatting and she brings up this one snippet of her day. She was talking to a Ghanaian who had walked into her internship office. They began chatting and somehow, he ended up describing his work relationship with his boss to her. He used a single word in Twi to describe it. Megan couldn’t remember the word, but this one word is an adjective that sums up the relationship between the dancer and the drummer. This one word describes the dancer, saying that he or she has to be attentive and adaptable, so that whichever tempo and beat the drummer dictates, he or she is capable of following and perform. I want to find out what this word is. I feel like it is the perfect word to describe me.

What’s your word?