NDTC JOURNAL Vol. 7, 2018

J URNAL NATIONAL DANCE THEATRE COMPANY OF JAMAICA - VOLUME 7, 2018

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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FROM THE EDITOR Barbara C. Requa, OD.

ARTICLES 6

Keeping “Caribbeanness” Alive in Dance Professor Rex Nettleford

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Giving Enduring Life Sources: The Value of Archival Memory to the Caribbean’s Cultural Heritage Stanley H. Griffin, PhD

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Contemplations on the Existence of the Jamaican Visual Arts Industry Winston C. Campbell, PhD

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Jouvay Ayiti: Making Mas Raparations; Making Reparations With Mas Marvin George

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Pushing Cultural Identities and Policies in Jamaica Keino Senior, PhD

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CONTRIBUTORS

Cover: Kerry-Ann Henry in Arsenio Andrade-Calderon’s A Prayer (2002). Jamie Barnett Photography Opposite page: NDTC Singers. Jamie Barnett Photography

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FROM THE EDITOR

Greetings to our Readers. The 2018 issue of the NDTC Quarterly Journal continues to provide thought-provoking topics that relate to the Arts in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. Through our brilliant contributors, new ideas are shared that keep our past alive while reaching forward to initiate new and exciting ways of expanding and sustaining our artistic growth.

Set out below is the list of Authors with introductory synopsis of some of the contents. ENJOY. 1. “Keeping ‘Caribbeaness’ Alive in Dance” by Prof. Rex Nettleford. The Author, in his introduction, asks the question ‘Is there any other place in the World where Artists support and sustain their chosen Art form without receiving payment”?

Please read on.

Barbara C. Requa, OD.

2. “Giving Enduring Life Sources: The value of Archival Memory in the Caribbean’s Cultural Heritage.” The Author, Stanley H. Griffin, PhD, outlines the similarity between Archival Material and the Performing Arts and ‘artfully’ explains how they can support each other.

3. “Contemplations on the existence of the Jamaican Visual Arts Industry”. This third presentation written by Winston C. Campbell, PhD, provides excellent reasons why the Visual Arts should become an Industry.

4. “Jouvay Ayity: Making Mas Reparations; Making Reparations with Mas” by author Marvin George. In his introduction, Mr. George states “In the same year that the Jamaica NDTC would celebrate 55 years the Edna Manley College would host the fourth Edition of the Rex Nettleford Arts Conference, the UWI opens the Centre for Reparations Research - What an omen! Read on.

5. “Pushing Cultural Identities and Policies in Jamaica”

by Dr. Keino Senior, PhD.” In this final presentation, Dr. Senior looks at “integrating education as a critical factor in Cultural preservation and promotion in Jamaica”. I think Jamaica is ready.

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Barbara Requa, NDTC founding member/former principal dancer in Reflections, Chor. Bert Rose (1975). Maria LaYacona Photography

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NDTC Singers in performance. Maria LaYacona Photography (l-r) Vin James, Carl Bliss Wesley Scott, Stan Irons, Vibart Seafoth

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KEEPING ‘CaribbeanESS’ ALIVE IN DANCE

By Professor Rex Nettleford

The question is often asked: how does a dance company in the languorous Caribbean survive for decades without a single one of its membership (dancers, singers, musicians and creative technicians) getting paid, and still receive wide international acclaim and command considerable respect at home (meaning both Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean)? As the many who are stupefied by the Jamaica National Dance Theatre Company’s (NDTC) longevity suggest, this is unique in the world of dance theatre, and unusual, especially in the Caribbean,where sprinting is often preferred to long-distance running.

Kumina (Chor. Rex Nettleford, 1971) Bryan Robinson Photography

I see the answer in the long-established Jamaican tradition of voluntarism, which dates back to the immediate post-Emancipation period. At that time, people fled the sugar estates and found new form and purpose in freedom by building villages, shaping institutions and crafting cultural expressions which had started to take shape a good 200 or so years before.

French islands and Jamaica Talk. Add to this the range of ancestral religions, like Cuba’s Santeria, Trinidad’s Shango or Brazil’s Candomblé with their orishas, Haitian Voodoo with its panoply of gods, Jamaica’s Kumina and its praise of Kikongo ancestors, and the syncretized forms from Zion revivalism to modern-day Spiritual Baptists. Then one can perhaps understand why an entity as serious as the NDTC is about the Caribbean’s deep heritage. has had to keep exploring, experimenting, and “divining” for whatever will lead to and sustain liberation and self-definition. An ex-slaves society and colonial outpost would desire no less.

Such expressions are the source of energy for the continuing creative output not only of Jamaica, but also of the entire Caribbean – whether it be the calypso of Trinidad, St. Lucian zouk, mento and reggae from Jamaica, or the storytelling traditions found all over the region. Add to this the Babel of creole tongues that range from Sranan Tonga in Suriname and Papiamentu in Curacao to Kweyol throughout the

The NDTC was founded in 1962 at the time of Jamaica’s Independence, after 307 years of continuous British colonial

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the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, the South Bank Theatre in London, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa or the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, usually occasions widespread critical acclaim for the company’s capturing of the essence of Jamaican and Caribbean life. This it does, with more than a hint of the mix of cultures colliding over centuries on Native American soil, preserving the dynamic of an existence in constant motion, yet without doing violence to the regulative elements that make it specifically Jamaican and Caribbean.

Various connections have been significant in the company’s development. The entire Caribbean, which of course shares common roots, is obvious connection. Trinidad and Tobago has enriched the NDTC’s dance repertoire and the suites of songs rendered by the NDTC Singers. Carnavapanscape and Ritual of the Sunrise, with its finale to David Rudder’s High Mas, immediately come to mind.

But the Trini Connection dates back to Beryl McBurnie’s Little Carib, which served as inspiration; and the early Jamaica dance movement drew on McBurnie’s passionate commitment to the notion that there is something called “Caribbean dance”. Traditional songs like Lillian and Mango by Olive Walke have challenged the NDTC singers to novel West Indian vocal arrangements.

Ritual of the Sunrise (Chor. Rex Nettleford, 1998) Jamie Barnett Photography

rule. Without ever submitting to a dry realism, the group has set out to find a true and faithful expression of self and society through the creative use of the body, the very instrument which has given West Indians an identity in the form of West Indies cricket. Like the cricketers, the dance ensemble has toured extensively overseas – to former “Mother” Britain, to be sure, but the NDTC has also appeared repeatedly in the old USSR and Australia, as well as in Latin America, the Commonwealth Caribbean, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Martinique.

The Haitians connection found expression in the years NDTC founding members spent studying under Lavinia Williams, the famed protégé of Kathrine Dunham, who forged a technique out of Haitian voodoo rites and taught it at summer school on the UWI Mona Campus for many years. A more recent connection is with Cuban Yoruba culture, yet another variation of Africa’s encounter with Europe on West Indian soil. Sulkari, by Jamaica-born Cuban choreographer Eduardo Rivero-Walker, expanded the dance-theatre vocabulary of the NDTC, so that by the time his student Arsenio Andrade joined the company, the Jamaicans were ready for his Congo Lay . The connection continues to reflect the close ties between Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, which all established diplomatic relations with Castro’s Cuba back in the 1970’s. The NDTC was proud recipient of the first Maurice Bishop Award from Casa de las Americas, later taking the prestigious Gold Musgrave Medal and Prime Ministers Award in its native Jamaica.

The company now enjoys the status of Artist-in-Residence at the New York’s Brooklyn College.

The NDTC’s “Caribbeaness” is undisputed, but the expression of universality in its depiction of common concerns of human condition has given it borderless access to hundreds of thousands of people all over the globe. A London critic recently regretted the fact that an enthusiastic London audience embraced the NDTC so avidly that she found it difficult to “critically locate” the Jamaican dance company, which went on to captivate audiences in Sheffield, Birmingham and Canterbury. This was its fourth British tour since 1965, when the company first established its international reputation at the Commonwealth Arts Festival. A New York critic once described the NDTC as “a Caribbean dance company with a modern dance impulse”. And the NDTC is certainly modern. In fact it is premodern, modern and post-modern all in one.

The wider Caribbean connection has extended in more recent times in Brazil, when Brazilian Ode entered the repertoire, prompted by the rich manifestation of African continuities in that country, notably in Bahia, which is currently enjoying a passionate love affair with Jamaican popular music, especially the work of Jimmy Cliff of The

The company’s diverse repertoire demands versatile dancers who speak to this multilayered characteristic. An evening with the NDTC, whether at the City Center in Manhattan, the Brooklyn Academy of Music or the Brooklyn Centre for the performing Arts,

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NDTC dancers in Eduardo Rivero-Walker’s Tribute (1995) Jamie Barnett Photography

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Harder They Come fame, who lives in Salvador for half of each year.

Across from the Atlantic in South Africa, from the days of apartheid to present, the NDTC has drawn on the music of Nbogeni (Dream on Squatters Mountain) and Abdullah Ibrahim (Blood Canticles), as well as on other African voices like Baaba Maal (Interconnections) and Letta Mbulu (The Crossing).

Such ancestral resonances abound in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, and this particular connection communicates and educates while it entertains thousands of patrons who flock to Little Theatre in Kingston each season, as well as to the theatres of the region. The NDTC’s main choreographers are Eddy Thomas, Neville Black, Sheila Barnett, Barbara Requa, Bert Rose, Barry Moncrieffe, Clive Thompson, Gene Carson, Arlene Richards, Monika Lawrence, Tony Wilson, Joyce Campbell and Rex Nettleford.

Among the company’s vast repertoire are the dance-works Kumina (depicting ancestor worship, a Kikongo rite), Gerrehbenta (a suite of dead-yard ceremonies still extant in Jamaica), Pocomania (based on a spirit-possession ritual), Plantation Revelry (utilizing the masquerade dances of jonkonnu, one of Jamaica’s festival arts), Married Story, Folkforms and Drumscore (based on the rhythms and dance-forms of Jamaican traditional lore). Similarly, a host of songs, from mento, dancing tunes, through Sankey, revival hymns and contemporary reggae, inform the separate repertoire of the NDTC Singers led by Musical Director Marjorie Whylie, and enhance the wide-ranging collection of dances rooted in Jamaican and Caribbean life.

Adrian Fletcher, Tony Wilson and Deroi Rose in Nettleford’s Praise Songs (1989).

Maria LaYacona Photography

The NDTC’s “Caribbeaness” is undisputed, but the expression of universality in its depiction of common concerns of human condition has given it borderless access to hundreds of thousands of people all over the globe.

The dance company predated arrival of reggae on the Caribbean cultural scene, but the two forms of Jamaican expression soon get together, with the company creating dance-works celebrating the genius first of Jimmy Cliff (Tribute to Cliff), then of Bob Marley (Court of Jah), Toots Hibbert (Backlash), Peter Tosh and Burning Spear (Children of Mosiah), and more dancehall artist Buju Banton (Bujurama).

The NDTC has other connections. The connection with the rest of the Americans via jazz is unquestionable, and the company’s repertoire resonates with jazz sounds and syncopated rhythms, as well as spirituals and contemporary gospel. And the less strong presence of India in Jamaican cultural life (than, say, in Trinidad and Guyana) does not exclude from the movement and music of Hosay, the Caribbean Muslim festival art which is still extant in Jamaica. (For Jamaicans the Indian presence is more commonly interrogated into Pocomania/Revivalism, when an Indian spirit” possesses a devotee of whatever race, and he or she dances to the beat of the tassa drum.) The NDTC, however, went beyond this, and 10

in 1995 added the Indian Mayur to its repertoire, in tribute to the 150th anniversary of the arrival of East Indians into Jamaica and into indentureship.

Caribbean dance vocabulary, technique and style, has made sure to create a friendly environment for dance and dancetheatre. It has facilitated the founding of the Jamaica School of Dance, which offers training to people all over the region in addition to summer sessions for American and British students. Its research projects has resulted in publications and continuing work in the field, while its community outreach through the annual arts festivals in Jamaica has served to spread the word and build audiences for itself and the many smaller groups that have mushroomed not only in Jamaica but in Barbados, Guyana, the Bahamas, Dominica and Belize.

Theatre groups are successful only when they operate on the basis of teamwork and creative mobilization of contemporary skills. The NDTC is no exception. The company uses this important fact to justify its goal of making the performing arts part of the curriculum at all levels of Caribbean education. The performers (all unpaid) are supported by an equally voluntary crew of creative technicians (lighting and sound directors, stage manager and wardrobe mistress) and administrators, as well as company photographers who record the “tale� for annual brochures, books and promotional literature.

The membership has included university students, teachers, doctors, lawyers, civil servants, clerks, receptionists, managers, supervisors, computer analysts, radio engineers and accountants.

The NDTC, besides performing and developing an identifiable

The Jamaican National Dance Theatre Company at 40 still has a way to go, its members like to say, even while lapping up the plaudits of audiences and critics at home and abroad. The words of a reviewer in the November 2001 edition of the prestigious UK publication Dancing Times sums it up nicely:

Yvonne daCosta and Rex Nettleford in The King Must Die (1968).

Maria LaYacona Photography

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It is on one hand, a great wonder that so small an island has produced so remarkable a company. It is on the other no wonder at all. For the cultures of Africa and of Europe have come together in a unique way on this island. African dancers chose to celebrate pelvic movements because the centre of the body – from which further life springs – is sacred. European dancers, in contrast, chose, under the influence of Christianity, to censure pelvic movement and celebrate instead bodily composure, possibilities flowing from peripheral movement and extended footwork. Jamaican dancers who have worked to absorb both traditions can ripple like snakes and promenade like flamingoes. Their dances can vibrate with power and float with decorum….Dance companies capable of delivering such life informing and life-embracing messages are rare.

Marlon D. Simms and Melanie Graham in Bert Rose’s Edna M (1987). Bryan Robinson Photography

It was St. Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott who once described a work by the NDTC as “older than revolution”, and it is Kamau Brathwaite, the iconic Barbadian poet-historian, who reminded the Caribbean compatriots and the world some time ago that “the Jamaican National Dance Theatre Company was born as Jamaica was re-born and has lived the stark sonorous destruction and renewal of the dream that the Caribbean has been involved in since 1962, since 1865, since 1834, since 1492 [and] as such it is the avatar and livin monument to those countless, voiceless millions dead who made their mark unmarked before this could be so…”. C (Reprinted from Caribbean Beat No. 58, November/December 2002)

African dancers chose to celebrate pelvic movements because the centre of the body – from which further life springs – is sacred.

European dancers, in contrast, chose, under the influence of Christianity, to censure pelvic movement and celebrate instead bodily composure, possibilities flowing from peripheral movement and extended footwork.

Stefanie Thomas and Marlon D. Simms in Clive Thompson’s Vision (1995).

Bryan Robinson Photography

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Giving Enduring Life Sources: The Value of Archival Memory to the Caribbean’s Cultural Heritage

By Stanley H. Griffin, PhD

Bridget Spaulding, Barbara Requa and Bert Rose in Nettleford’s Dialogue for Three (1963).

Maria LaYacona Photography

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detailed and meaningful to both participants and observers as those who are party to the terms of a written contract.

In the Caribbean, archival materials have been stereotypically aligned with the output of governance and administration, rather than as cultural sources of information and inspiration. Born out of the daily administrative work or the artistic creative process, archives are records that have been adjudged as having enduring or continuing value to the creator and future users. In many ways, archives are like the performing arts. These two seemingly incomparable activities are the by-products of moments, movements, occasions, relationships and transactions. They have use and meaning for both participants and beneficiaries. Yet, the significance of the memory of both the transaction and performance could be lost to the present and future, if the valuable moment is not captured, preserved or—worse still—be made available to future users, performers or audiences. Archives, like performing arts, continually inform, inspire and instigate new works and meanings. As artistes create and perform, there is a need to document and retain, in the same way archival materials should be consulted and celebrated. This paper will argue that the archival memory of the Caribbean continually gives life sources to the region and adds rich details to understanding constructs of Caribbean heritage, in the very same way as the performing arts.

Archives are traditionally defined as, “Materials created or received by a person, family, or organization, public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the enduring value contained in the information they contain or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their creator…” 2 These materials are essentially records, usually in paper formats, that are “created or received and maintained by an organization or person in the transaction of business or the conduct of affairs and kept as evidence of [the] activity.” 3 Traditional definitions emphasize the centrality of the creating person, family or organization to the materials (i.e. provenance), the way the records were used and maintained during the work process (i.e. the original order) and more importantly, the content, structure and context that are essentially the invaluable details in the record.4 Records come in several formats, whether as paper-based documents, such as notes, contracts, deeds, diaries, drawings, plans, maps, or photographs, audiovisual tape recordings, or cloth textiles. The importance of these records, however, does not lie in the content of the items prima facie, but in the meanings conveyed for the creator, on the subject matter, and for future users.

Professor Rex Nettleford inadvertently describes dance in Jamaica as an archival record. Writing in the seminal text, Inward Stretch, Outward Reach: A Voice from the Caribbean, Nettleford posits,

At the heart of every archival record is a story—a narrative—which is being documented as the transaction, relationship or the activity is played out. Tsafrir Goldberg et al describes a narrative as,

Reaching beyond mere survival, the dance in Jamaica long ago refused to get stuck in genres of light-hearted entertainment despite the ring games, lancers, schottische, and quadrille suitably adapted from the court and country dance of Europe.

Instead the dance preserved its force through integrated links with religion in the worship of forbidden but persistent gods, divination rituals, and the configuration of a nether world beyond the master’s laws. It has given to the cultural heritage of Jamaica such enduring life sources as kumina, pukkumina (popularly known as pocomania), etu, tambu, gerreh, dinkimini, Zion revivalism, and Rastafarianism. (my emphasis) 1

An account of events acted out by agents, it has a temporal continuum, usually constructed around main turning points, presenting problems or tensions and their resolution. Individuals spontaneously construct narrative accounts of close or distant and past events for a variety of ends and reasons. Such accounts serve to organize and stabilize memory, to help comprehend events, to come to terms with and account for consequences and to attribute responsibility.5 Narratives have also been described as stories a people tell themselves about themselves. These stories are an essential to how Caribbean define and understand our personal and community selves. Stories run the full range of record types. Within stories are the records of family life and death, property ownership, relationships and progeny, business transactions, wills and testaments. Narratives are implied and articulated in the way people live their lives and construct their world views. Stories, then, become the tangible evidences for the understanding of people’s behaviours and their lived experiences.

Narratives are, therefore, essential for the sustenance of one’s cultural identities, since they demarcate their social, cultural and political

In many ways, the dance could be likened to an archival record, created within particular contexts, times and spaces, yet imbued with meanings for participants and observers alike. To consider these artistic expressions as archival, however, is far from customary.

Traditional viewpoints on archives would have discarded these activities as having no fixed value. Movements are fluid and transient, and are not ‘documents’, etched distinctive forms on written formats and therefore unchangeable with time. Thankfully, postmodern archival theorists and practitioners recognize that even though the dance may not be ‘typed in black and white’, the movements are as 15

spaces. They “serve to establish different socio-cultural orders that repair the ruptures [of colonialism, race, and class] that have characterized the Caribbean.”6 Narratives, therefore are essential elements in the way people define themselves. These stories can unite, consolidate, and define an individual and community as they offer unique clues to the varying experiences and perspectives, much in the same way Professor Nettleford describes the dance.

Challenging as it may be, these expressions and formats must be captured, as they are the articulation of the hopes and dreams of the postcolonial and post-independent Caribbean peoples and societies. Archival theorist Jeannette Bastian considers these artforms, often performed in the region’s festivals and carnivals, as ‘Living Archives’. …If an annual celebration can be considered as a longitudinal and complex cultural community expression, then it also can be seen dynamically as a living archives where the many events within the celebration constitute the numerous records comprising the expression. While some of these records may be the traditional fixed variety, others may be mobile, transient, ephemeral—dances, oral performances, costumes, folklore—but all belong, have a place and may be completely comprehended within a coherent past and present understanding of the social dynamic in which the celebration resides. The celebration and the community [and its archives], are one.10

Each swirl, tumble, rhythm, and movement are an element with a unique story and meaning. Every time the dance is performed meanings are revived—even resurrected, renewed and reinterpreted to present-day realities and constructs. Thus, archival records, according to archival theorist Laura Millar, “are just one of the many tools societies use to create, sustain, and share memories; they are ‘vehicles of memory’, particularly important in those societies more dependent on writing than on orality, or images, or rituals, for the transmission of information and ideas.”7 In the same way as the dance, “archival records…can convey emotional and intellectual links to people and events of previous eras… Such [materials] also reveal the complexity and variety of human experience, the emotional impact of public events on individuals, and the importance of knowing the past in order to understand the present.”8 This knowledge that is infused in the records are referred to as archival memory, and can be accessed in at least one official repository in the Caribbean.

Thus, there is need for a mutually beneficial relationship between artistes and archivists: the creator must be willing to keep in context their creative by-products and the archivist must be willing to capture, preserve and make accessible such art works. No longer can the Archival repositories of the region simply be stories of the records of colonialism, such as plantation deeds and slave registers. The contemporary Caribbean society must be documented, especially our creative byproducts.

In the Caribbean, archives have been linked to the workings of administration. In addition to conjured up images of dusty old papers in dark musty cellars, is the view that archival materials are simply the minutes of meetings, the accountant’s ledgers, constitutions, contracts and deeds. These important byproducts of business and governance are often cast aside and considered too dull and of no historical significance. So often, the poet’s drafts, the composer’s scores, the choreographer’s steps, the designer’s sketches, the director’s stage notes, and the DJ’s riddims are lost to the creator—and the future, because of the lack of appreciation for these documents of creative inspiration. This is an unfortunate reality for both the creative industry and the archival/heritage sector in the Caribbean. Cultural theorist Antonio Benítez-Rojo describes the Caribbean as a space of continuous creativity. The Caribbean’s culture is constantly creating like volcanic eruptions, “whose slow explosions throughout modern history threw out billions and billions of cultural fragments in all directions—fragments of diverse kinds that, in their endless voyage, come together in an instant to form a dance step, a linguistic trop, the line of a poem, and afterward repel each other to re/form and pull apart once more, and so on.”9 This constant creativity, articulated and expressed in non-traditional formats, challenges Caribbean archivists in our quest to capture, preserve and make available the total contemporary representation of our societies.

This notion of the archives as living is not new. Achille Mbembe uses the metaphor of death to suggest that archives are materials that are fragments of times, persons and organizations that have ‘died’ and, having been selected for permanent preservation, are returned to life with use. He notes that both archives (as materials) and the Archives (as the repository) both constitute and distribute a sacredness which transcends the mortality of humankind. “Archiving is a kind of interment, laying some thing in a coffin, if not to rest, then at least to consign elements of that life which could not be destroyed purely or simply. These elements, removed from time and from life, are assigned to a place and a sepulchre that is perfectly recognizable because it is consecrated: the Archives… [Archives as materials are] proof that a life truly existed, that something actually happened, an account of which can be put together. The final destination of the [archival record] is therefore always situated outside its own materiality, in the story that it makes possible”.11 In other words, the record— like the dance—that is ascribed with enduring value, continues to perpetuate its own life force by re/sourcing future uses, performances and interpretation.

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Left: NDTC Singers in performance featuring lead vocalist Joyce Lalor. Maria LaYacona Photography Right: Afro-West Indian Suite (Chor. Rex Nettleford, Eddy Thomas, Eyrick Darby (1962)

Archives are “mystic chords of memory”, suggests Frank Boles, that once struck reverberate with new life and meanings, by offering details that re/source the secondary user. He writes, “Archives are, and will remain, that place where, above everything else, the soul of a person and of a community is both preserved and laid bare.

Insofar as any human can find truth, truth is in our holdings. Insofar as any human can find immortality, immortality is in our [storage rooms].”12 One would dare to suggest that Professor Nettleford was observing that the listed dance movements, with its accompanying appropriate times and spaces, have cultural meanings that initially informed their creations. These movements could easily ‘die’ if fallen out of relevance, but still have renewing forces, when performed, to sustain, inspire and renew Jamaican heritage. The dancer, like the archivist, has an obligation that transcends simply ensuring precision in movement and performance, but more so, in ensuring meaning in memory. Records, like dances, could easily be cast aside and be lost to the future. Dancers, like archivists, have a responsibility to ensure that the meanings are carried forward as essential understandings of the dances. Boles states this dilemma plainly, “Because of this fundamental essence of humanity that resides within our repositories, those of us who work in archives are both privileged and significant. We are the selectors and the keepers of individual and collective memory. What archivists remember will be remembered. What archivists forget will be forgotten.”13 Like so many records and cultural expressions, when a people lose that

sense of value for an item, an activity or even a movement, it is discarded and forgotten.

So how can dancers and archivists ensure that their ‘enduring life sources’ are ever remembered, and continue to be meaningful to our Caribbean societies? Bastian’s solution as seeing archives as “living archives” is perhaps a good starting point for reflection. She argues that the Caribbean should move away from the Western constructs of the archival record, and decide on a model that best reflects how we appraise and what we select as having enduring value. Quoting fellow theorist Anne Gilliland, Bastian observes, Much of what we believe about the nature of archives is based upon Western ideas about the kinds of objects that a record can comprise, and the characteristics and circumstances that make that record either reliable or authentic, or, preferably, both. Little or no space exists within this paradigm for cultures with non-textual mechanisms for recording decisions, actions, relationships, or memory, such as those embodied in oral, aural, or kinetic traditions…14

Bastian however suggests that the community must get involved. By illustrating the value of their cultural expressions to their own lived experiences, they as a community can appraise, select, maintain and preserve, and more importantly, celebrate their own ‘life source’.

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selecting those things most dear as our remembrances to be passed down to the next generation, or perhaps the next millennium.19

While there is no question that most archival repositories house, preserve, maintain and make accessible cultural traces in one form or another, that is not the same as acknowledging and accommodating the cultural records that thrive in dynamic form within the communities that live them. Bringing these cultural expressions into the purview of the archives requires new modes of thinking about records and new frameworks for understanding all the ways in which communities15 record.

Moreover, artistes should be conscientious of the value of their records as they continue their work, and support their local archives by donating materials. Victoria O’Flaherty, National Archivist of St Kitts and Nevis, recounts a common challenge Caribbean archivists face in our societies.

The concept of the maintenance and the archiving of records was not easily absorbed especially in a culture where the oral transmission of information predominated. In many ways, record keeping as a whole was part of that alien culture, demanded by foreigners who held positions of power… For example, Union General Secretary, J. N. France was meticulous in his record keeping, recognizing both the utility of records in an industrial dispute and their historical value. He had made effective use of them in a series of articles on labour history that he had published in the Union’s newspaper…but soon after France died in 1997, the minutes he had kept were discovered in the street awaiting disposal. Fortunately, they were rescued and are now in the National Archives…20

Performers should visit and use their local archives. While there may not explicitly be records on particular cultural expressions, Caribbean Archives are replete with narratives—stories—of personalities, times, emotions and events past that, once researched, could easily come to life and add deeper meanings to interpretations of the past, present-day identity constructions and enrich performances.

Archivists need to become more involved in their community, including the performing arts sector. The Australian Statement of Knowledge for Recordkeeping Professionals outlines the roles archivists and records managers16 should play in their societies.

Recordkeeping professionals support societies, communities and organisations as they try to make meaning out of decisions, actions and memories. Recordkeeping professionals provide an essential bridge between the past, present and future dimensions in which records and their contexts belong; through understanding the environments that generated the records and the way records act as evidence of those environments. 17

However, there are many more instances where records were indiscriminately destroyed, not only upon the death of the creator, but sadly by the actual creator. The Digital Dance Archives of the

Above all the technical know-how, the archivist should be an advo cate for the community’s memory. Boles maintains, “Appraisal, arrangement, description, and preservation are functions we routinely rattle off when called upon to explain what an archivist does. Often forgotten is the responsibility for advocacy… However, advocacy is not just about getting what we believe should be ours… The ultimate purpose of political advocacy is to create an environment that makes it possible for us to preserve history through appropriate means.”18 We can only assist the other stakeholders of the cultural heritage sector by being present and vocal. Archival education emphasizes, as a fundamental professional objective, the importance of appraising the value of records, the art-and-science through which the archivist—in consultation with the relevant stakeholders— ascribes enduring value to the materials. For as Boles states, “In the end, [archivists] must continue to make the kind of choices that began with selection, and for which we alone are educated. We must link resources to needs and make informed choices. We must, in…

Court of Jah (Chor. Rex Nettleford, 1975) Maria LaYacona Photography

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Sulkari (Chor. Eduardo Rivero-Walker, 1980) Maria LaYacona Photography

United Kingdom is the result of dancers and choreographers making a conscious decision to document their crafts. This Archives “links together different dance archive collections, representing over 100 years of British dance”. 21 To what extent can Caribbean dancers boast of such a collection, or even trace their various performances over the last few years? As a cultural analyst and researcher, it is often difficult to even access recorded performan es and musical scripts from calypsonians and musicians, even for the last festival season. Documenting our creativity is not to limit its usefulness. On the contrary, the records propel its significance beyond the rehearsal room and the performance stage into the reach of wider society and the future.

celebrated through the recreation of tribal myths and legends as part of a collective wisdom communicated in part by the shaman through which they learn abiding truths about themselves”.22 For a community to appreciate the value of, and be renewed by the dance or the record, they must have access to it. The cultural heritage of the dance and the record are not just integral to the movement or the item, it is intrinsic to the community’s appreciation of its relevance to their current constructions of self and their lived experiences.

Taylor observes, Documents [like the dance] contain the record of events, they are not the events themselves. It is a mark of heritage that it remains a present reality and the record of the past must be seen in this light. If heritage is concerned primarily with widely accepted and sharply apparent expressions of a culture in terms of its cultural ‘goods’, in every sense of the word, of its buildings and its art, its dance and its song, which may be

Finally, both artistes and archivists should reach out to their communities. Life sources are only life-sustaining and life-giving if they are accessible and used. Archivist Hugh Taylor posits, “For non-literate communities the past is constantly renewed and 19

readily experienced and transmitted, then documents, with no purpose beyond written communication and without literary pretentions, may not rank very highly and indeed are in great danger of being regarded as worthless.23 This is the ultimate challenge for cultural communities, like The NDTC, and archives. For every performance and record stored, is the possibility of relevance being misconstrued and meaning lost. Perhaps, Professor Nettleford is admonishing us all, then, not to just preserve the art forms and present the dance, but more importantly, to promote the meanings, which will continue to sustain and give new life to our Caribbean cultural heritage. C

Rex Nettleford, Inward Stretch, Outward Reach: A Voice From the Caribbean New York: Caribbean Diaspora Press, 1993, 99 Richard Pearce-Moses, A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2005, 30 3 Caroline Williams, Managing Archives: Foundations, Principles and Practice Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2006, 6 4 Content, Structure and Context are the three defining features of any record, regardless of format. Content refers the basic informational details such as text, data, symbols, images, etc. that substantively make up the record. Structure refers to the physical characteristics and organization of the record, such as type of paper, inks, font, encodings, etc. Context, moreover, refers to the circumstances or process, whether it is organizational, functional or operational, which gives reason for the making of the record. The context allows for a full appreciation of the situation that the surrounds the creation of the record, and the correlation to other records and the record-creator. For further details, see Richard Pearce-Moses, Glossary (2005) online at Society of American Archivists website https://www2.archivists.org/glossary 5 T. Goldberg, D. Porat, and B.B. Schwarz, “Here Started the Rift We See Today: Student and Textbook Narratives Between Official and Counter Memory”, Narrative Inquiry, Vol 16 No.2, 2006, 319 6 K. Fog Olwig and J. Besson, “Introduction: Caribbean Narratives of Belonging” in K. Fog Olwig and J. Besson (eds) Caribbean Narratives of Belonging: Fields of Relations, Sites of Identity, Oxford: 2005, 5 7 Laura Millar, “Touchstones: Considering the Relationship between Memory and Archives”Archivaria, [S.l.], Sep. 2006. 121 8 Randall C. Jimerson, “Archives and Memory” OCLC Systems and Services Vol. 19, No. 3. 2003, 90 9 Antonio Benítez-Rojo, “Three Words Toward Creolization” Caribbean Creolization: Reflections on the Cultural Dynamics of Language, Literature and Identity K. M Baluntansky and M. Sourieau, Kingston: The Press, 1990, 55 10 Jeannette Bastian, “The Records of Memory, the Archives of Identity: Celebrations, Texts and Archival Sensibilities” Archival Science Vol. 13 2013, 123 11 Achille Mbembe, “The Power of the Archive and its Limits”, C Hamilton, et al, Refiguring the Archive Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 2002, 23,22 12 Frank Boles, “But a Thin Veil of Paper”, 64th SAA Presidential Address, August 2009 13 Boles, 2009 14 Bastian, 2013, 124 15 Bastian, 2013, 124 16 A Records Manager is an officer responsible for the active and semi-active records within an organization; as opposed to an Archivist, usually having responsibility for records selected for permanent retention and historical value.

17 Statement of Knowledge for Recordkeeping Professional version 1.0 ASA the Australian Society of Archivists and RIM Professionals Australasia, 2011, pp1-3 http://rimpa.com.au/professional-development/statement-ofknowledge/ accessed November 2017 18 Boles, 2009 19 Boles, 2009 20 Victoria B. O’Flaherty, “Overcoming Anonymity: Kittitians and Their Archives” Jeannette Bastian and Ben Alexander Community Archives: The Shaping of Memory London: Facet Publishing, 2009, 230 21 See the website of the UK’s Digital Dance Archives, http://www.dance-archives.ac.uk/index.php accessed November 2017 22 Hugh A. Taylor, “The Collective Memory: Archives and Libraries As Heritage” Archivaria 15 (Winter 1982-83), 118 23 Taylor, 1982-83, 119 1 2

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The Crossing (Chor. Rex Nettleford, 1978) Maria LaYacona Photography

10

CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE JAMAICAN VISUAL ARTS INDUSTRY

by Winston C. Campbell, PhD An industry is a peculiar and politicised term which for some speaks specifically to particular types of business activities that may be in existence in a particular region or territory. Generally speaking, it is also accepted that industry is associated with trading and manufacturing, often on an inter-regional and inter-territorial level. Nonetheless, the term speaks to devoted emphasis on a particular range of activities that are crucial to the development of the particular geographic location within which it is practiced, especially given the emphasis on the specificity of the particular activity being undertaken.

Taking these core perspectives into consideration, Throsby & Madden (2001) reminds us of the fact that artists do find the term problematic, given the emphasis on art as a mere tradable commodity. It clear then that the term has some embedded ideological and pejorative uses and is therefore resisted by some members of the artworld globally. The same appears to be true in a Jamaican sense, given the avoidance of the term in artistic circles. Nonetheless, it is the argument of this essay that the term ‘visual arts industry’ is a useful one as it challenges the ways in the visual arts are located within the wider economic landscape by legislators, artists, arts administrators and other stakeholders.

Kerry-Ann Henry in A Prayer choreographed by Arsenio Andrade-Calderon

activities” (Caves, 2000). Such an approach is also supported

by Throsby & Madden (2001) who argued that “the existence of our industry definition is the identification of individuals and institutions involved in the production, reproduction, distribution and consumption of visual art.”

While there may be several ways to define such as an industry, it is presented here as the conglomerate of persons and institutions that are engaged in all aspects of the business of the visual arts, since an industry “describes a much more specific grouping of companies with highly similar business

More specifically, it is apparent that a hallmark of a successful industry is the ability of its stakeholders to identify and capitalise on the comparative that may be available in the particular parochial context. In Nettlefordian terminology, the stakeholders have to first make an “inward stretch” before that “outward 22

This must be contextualised against the fact that in 2005, the Creative Industry was estimated to have a global value of US$424.4B with an average annual projected growth rate of 8.7% (Smith, 2011). What is unclear and is most definitely a problem with this kind of approach is the fact that it is uncertain as to what percentage of this figure is accrued by agencies, institutions and personnel who are directly engaged in the visual arts. Perhaps, this is one of the key issues with such a broad-based approach to the industrial activity of this nature. While there is interest in which of the terms is most suitable (between cultural or creative industries or economies), especially given the interdependence on the various subsectors of either listing (Creative Industry: advertising, architecture, antiques, craft, design, fashion, film, video, photography, software development, PC games, electronic publishing, music, visual arts, performing arts, television and radio; cultural industry: advertising, marketing, broadcasting, film, internet, etc.) it should be noted that the focus here is squarely on the visual arts, which based on the curriculum of art colleges globally may include a number of the other elements listed under either industry categorisation.

stretch” can be made. We have to look inside and after developing that knowledge what we have, we can then better understand our position in the wider scheme of things. The Jamaican visual arts industry requires the same kind of underlying philosophy for it to develop the kind of relevance to the various members of the Jamaican nation that is necessary. If we are to adjust to the demands of the forces of globalisation (as is described in the work of Hilary Beckles) and counter the underdevelopment that results from an inability to do the same then the assertion of Nettleford is more than cogent.

The characteristics and features of a visual arts industry In the contemplation of the characteristics and features of the visual arts industry it is arguable that we have many of the core elements that are essential for a healthy and vibrant industry in Jamaica: branded art galleries, dealers, collectors, prized-based art activities, art fairs, tertiary-level training programmes, curators, art critics, artist-in-residence programmes, auction houses, and motivated students of art, etcetera (Davis, 2011). While we may argue that one or more of these elements may be lacking, the fact is that we have the largely the core or necessary components in our territory, except for arguably the appropriate ethos or will to bring the appropriate levels of commitment, facilitation and support that is required at a legislative and institutional level (Davis, 2011).

With this in mind, it is necessary to examine the contributions of Caribbean voices to this discourse. Barbadian national Annalee Davis questions the sustainability of the visual arts in the Anglophone Caribbean and the impact of globalisation on the Caribbean artist. Davis (2011) argues for the understanding of the networks within which our artists operate, including the presence of many “artist led initiatives”, their causes due to (in her estimation) the failure of “formal institutions”, and the ways in which the artworld has been impacted and shaped by such activities. These essays also point to an awareness of the fact that there are some key elements that must be focussed on, if we are to claim a visual arts industry in the Caribbean.

In an attempt to understand what should be done in a circumstance such as ours, especially given this observation, it is necessary to look at what exists in other parts of the world. Such an investigation does not only offer insights into what other territories are doing as far as facilitating and supporting the various arms of the visual arts industry in a local sense, it also raises the question as to whether or not it is necessary to have emphasis being placed on such an industry in the first instance. To this end, it is interesting to point to the fact that the term ‘visual arts industry’ has not gained popularity in several important locales. In fact, it is apparently the case that it is preferred to lump the activities of persons who engaged in the visual arts in various ways under the lager headings of ‘creative industries’, or in some instances, ‘cultural industries’ or even ‘creative economies’. Such a case is consistent with the North American Industry Classification System, which is based on UN’s ‘International Standard Industry Classification System’.

In this system, the visual arts is presented as a sub-sector of a larger industry and lumped within the ‘Arts, Entertainment and Recreation’ grouping.

Among the elements that must be considered are: an artist directory (that could be parochial and regional), development of additional suitable exhibition spaces, framing and display experts who are exposed to a wide range of approaches in terms of art and their required mounting/display peculiarities, copyright and other legal experts, provisions and legislations for disability rights, loan mechanisms and opportunities that are peculiar to the industry and its practitioners, and a commitment to the gathering, and analysis of a wide range of statistics on the members of the industry. The thesis is that for an industry to be established or recognisable, and then sustainable, there is a need for much data on the operations of the industry in terms of (i) the revenue generated from the various activities such as sales, and transfer fees (legal, auctioneering, appraisals, etcetera); (ii) whether 23

Beres on Love (Chor. Marlon D. Simms, 2016) Jamie Barnett Photography

tone points to the fact that the kind of focus that is necessary is lacking. In essence, the Caribbean space is yet to be governed by an ethos that recognises the viability and sustainability of the visual arts once it is treated as an industry in its own right. When the case of Australia is considered in comparison, it is recognised that 39.5% of the value of the creative industry was generated by the visual arts. The fact that we do not have that kind of data available in the Caribbean, and in Jamaica more specifically makes it difficult to nurture and sustain the work that is done at an institution such as the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, and more specifically, the School of Visual Arts in Jamaica.

there is growth or decline in the forecast and the reasons for this; (iii) the current rates of growth or decline overall, and with respect to specific types of activities; (iv) the size of the industry in monetary and participatory (personnel and assets) terms; (v) the number of personnel involved by category (artists, curators, critics, installation personnel, etcetera), as well as, by their status (as fulltime or part-time, freelance or salaried participants, etcetera); (vi) the levels of training that has been accessed by the participants; (vii) the availability of suitable instructional/training opportunities; (viii) the geographic distribution of varying types of personnel, assets and institutions in the given geographic area; (ix) and the rate of compensation that has been and projected to be garnered by personnel within the industry (Cunningham, 2010).

This is not to suggest that the situation in Australia is perfect.

In their 2001 engagement of ‘An Economic Model of the Visual Arts Industry in Australia’, Throsby & Madden pointed to the fact

While the remarks are pointed in these papers, it is clear that the 24

In April, 2011, the Deutsche Bank facilitated a research on the impact of the creative industries in Germany, and “the growth potential for specific segments” (Dapp & Ehmer, 2011). The research noted a number of key facts, such as the emphasis on industry being a 21st century concept as far as the classification and understanding of contribution of visual artists, architects, software and game developers, musicians, etc. are concerned.

More importantly, the study provided figures that substantiated emphasis on the kinds of economic activity that were associated with such human activity. Of note, for example, is the suggestion that over one million persons are employed in such activities, generating a €60B in goods and services produced. Of course, there was also a high incidence of self employed persons in the various sectors of this knowledge-intensive industry. Nonetheless, it has been estimated that by 2020, the value of the goods and services produced could be at €175B, assuming that the “right” policies are implemented to protect and nurture this potential (Dapp & Ehmer, 2011).

that the term art seems incompatible with industry given the fact that the latter term is tied up with trade. In other words, to frame what is done in the artworld in industrial terms is to reduce the various other non-economic values that the output of visual artists have had or generated since the emergence of human civilisations (see also Schneider Adams, 2001). More specifically, it has been shown that it is difficult to delineate who are to be included in the employment data that is to be captured for those who are “creatively employed” (painters and sculptors, etcetera) as opposed to those who work in a creative industry in a non-creative way, such as security personnel and cleaners (etcetera). The suggested approach to the visual arts industry here encourages a rejection of the exclusion of any personnel based on the type of function that they may play in the industry. Being inclusive in this regard provides a more complete picture of the types of input and output relationships that exist within the industry, and between other related industries, hence leading to a greater appreciation of the value of the industry.

NDTC Singers (l-r) Heston Boothe, Kaydene Gordon, Faith Livingstone, Leighton Jones, Kemar Lee, Kamala Nicholson Johnson, Sarina Constantine, Helen Christian, Joshua Page

10 19

Do we need to develop a Visual Arts Industry in Jamaica?

A 2011 British based study on copyright contracts and earnings (Kretschmer, Singh, Bentley & Cooper, 2011) highlighted the fact that visual artists did earn below the national salary average of £21,320, with the “typical” photographer and illustrator earning around £15,000 per annum in 2009/2010. Nonetheless, this average was tempered by the fact that the distribution in income was unequal, as some persons employed in visual creation fields were earning upwards of £120,000. More importantly, and for the context of this enquiry, the visual creator was defined by a number of variables, including: (i) time spent working on projects, (ii) income derived from such activities, (iii) reputation amongst the public, (iv) recognition amongst other artists, (v) quality of work produced, (vi) membership within a professional body, (vii) professional qualification, and (viii) self evaluation. The criteria utilised required that a professional artist spent more than 50% of his or her time working on visual creation projects, and earns more than 50% of one’s income from such activities. In terms of location, the study also pointed to the fact that ¼ of the visual creators of the UK resided in London.

While it is clear that studies, such as the one carried out in Gauteng, South Africa, position the economic activity generated by the practitioners of the visual arts under the larger rubric of Creative Industries, the kinds of variables at play could mean that the visual arts ought to be seen as an industry in its own right, and not just as a sector. From this vantage point, one could say then that in Jamaica, as is the case in most other places, we have the makings of an industry, or the industry exists in a very unstructured manner. Officially however, the visual arts are usually restricted to second tier treatment due in part to a philosophy that limits the activities and values of the industry to mere sales that most often pale in comparison to other seemingly creative endeavours.

To this end, most territories lump the activities undertaken by persons involved in the visual arts into a category called the visual arts sector. This is an anomaly in perspective that is largely myopic in scope.

Another useful set of data was also gleaned from the British Council study of the visual arts sector of Gauteng, one of South Africa’s nine provinces, in 2007. It was pointed out in that research that in 2001, the global art market generated some US$30B (J$2.6 Trillion), 50% of which was generated in the United States.

Another 25.3% was generated by the UK’s art market. Apart from outlining where the bulk of the market activity was taking place, the study outlined the fact that by 2007, the noticeable rise in the price of art on the global scene was largely due to demand from China, Russia, India and the Emirates, as persons looked to accumulate objects for investment purposes. This was unlike what obtained for the Deutsche Bank, which has a global of over 55,000 pieces (photographs, prints and drawings), which were acquired “to support living artists, benefit local communities and create an energized work environment”, and not for investment purposes. In short, it is clear that on a global scale, works of art are being acquired for multiple reasons.

The visual arts activities must instead be seen under the rubric of industry. Such an approach to the discussion of the existence, future and benefits of a visual arts industry in Jamaica would demonstrate how the stifled growth can be reversed if a more respectful and broad-based approach is utilised. This suggestion must be contextualised against the approach to industry discussed above, which underscores the kinds of inter-regional and interterritorial trading that is being facilitated by territories such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Undoubtedly, the insistence on an industry would require consistent and continuous research of an immense magnitude, as has been done in places such as Australia. This research would capture current and projected data on the various inputs and outputs that affect the production, transfer and consumption of the visual arts locally and internationally. The pursuit of such data would facilitate the kinds of economic growth that other more developed territories have recognised and benefitted from.

The collection trends in recent years suggest that those who are collecting for investment reasons are interested in the “volatile” and “most liquid” contemporary art sector. It is this interest that has generated an 18% increase in 2007 art prices globally. By 2007, the distribution of the global visual arts market share were as follows: US – 42%, UK – 30%, China – 7%, France – 6%, Germany – 3%, Italy – 2%, Switzerland 2%, and Others – 8%.

The report went on to outline that the “lion’s share” of the auction generated sales for 2006 were garnered by paintings (75%), followed by water-colour drawings (11%) and then sculpture (8%).

To get there, the various stakeholders must be identified and engaged. There are a range of items that must be researched for the industry to be properly delineated, managed and transformed into a sustainable alternative in further economic development of the country. The range includes data on revenue generation, transfer costs and incidence, personnel involvement, assets utilised, training engaged, and the potential for forecast (etcetera). The stakeholders are critical to the gathering of this data. Therefore, the creation of the right ethos, or atmosphere of engagement, on a 26

Tintinnabulum (Chor. Rex Nettleford, 1997) Jamie Barnett Photography

employed to execute skilled or unskilled technical (and other support). As alluded to earlier, being inclusive in this regard provides a more complete picture of the types of input and output relationships that exist within the industry, and between other related industries, hence leading to a greater appreciation of the value of the industry.

legislative and managerial level is crucial. The stakeholders must be engaged with the same degree of respect and importance that is given to other industry players in the economy.

The primary stakeholders would include persons in a number of categories: (a) Trainers (specialist teachers in the informal and formal systems of learning (the primary, secondary, tertiary schools), (b) Students in the informal and formal systems of learning (the primary, secondary, tertiary schools), (c) Legislators and Policy Makers (Government and State Agencies), (d) Creators (Artists, Designers, Illustrators, etcetera), (e) Art Administrators (Curators, Critics, Arts Development Officers and Auctioneers), (f) Collectors, (g) Legal Specialists and Insurance Agents, (h) Shippers, (i) Technical Personnel (incl. Installation Officers, Carpenters, Electricians, Restoration and Conservation Personnel, Cleaners etc.), (j) Security (On-site Personnel, Transfer Personnel – Funds and Art, Technology-based Companies).

Given the position that we have the makings of an industry and the framework around which to build it, how then do we go about getting it done? A second equally more important question must also be entangled with here, why should a visual arts industry be developed? While there may be several approaches to the question, the “inward stretch” alluded to earlier is critical. In essence, an internal assessment of what exists in the Jamaican context would result in the development of a much clearer picture as to where the comparative advantage exists as far as the core elements of the visual arts industry are concerned: branded art galleries, dealers, collectors, prized-based art activities, art fairs, tertiary-level training programmes, curators, art critics, artistin-residence programmes, auction houses, legislative and policy support, and motivated students of art, etcetera (Smith, 2011; Davis, 2011).

These personnel all play crucial roles in ensuring that the various activities that make the industry work take place. Given what was outlined earlier about tracking the inputs and outputs of the industry, it is essential to understand what those who are ‘creatively employed’ are contributing, as well as what those 21

27

Invariably, there will be fewer persons who are not contributing to the social well-being of their communities and nation. There will be fewer persons with issues of self-esteem.

The data that can be gathered in this regard will also be relevant as to what steps (legislative, administrative and otherwise) must be taken in an effort to galvanise those areas within which comparative advantage exists, and to improve in the areas within which comparative advantage can be achieve. In other terms, looking inwards and developing a better sense of what exists will provide the impetus and direction as to the idiosyncrasies of the industry and how it can be better developed to serve the needs of the people of the country, and by extension, our global partners. Where a shortage of personnel, equipment, facilities or other infrastructural necessities are observed, the relevant and appropriate steps can then be taken to ensure improvement at whatever level of the industrial mechanism that this exists.

Continuous data gathering would allow precautionary measures to be implemented for whatever may be in the forecast for the medium to long term viability of the future of the industry.

Conclusion In conclusion, the treatment of what we do in the artworld as industry may appear absurd on the surface. However, the term does attract a particular legislative and administrative respect that transcends the embedded ideological and pejorative uses.

With emphasis being on the multifaceted nature of the business of art and the relationships that exists between the conglomerate of persons and institutions that are engaged in all aspects of the business of the visual arts, it is clear that the term challenges the ways in the visual arts are located within the wider economic landscape by legislators, artists, arts administrators and other stakeholders.

The rationale for making the steps being suggested in this paper rests in the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the country. Increasingly, there is a need for continued diversification of the economic mechanism that governs our trade relations with our international partners, and the ways in which the people of the nation are able to find gainful employment, etcetera. Given the wide range of activities that are involved in a developed visual arts industry, it is clear that greater emphasis would have to be placed on a myriad of activities, some of which are specialist (legal, curatorial, educational, security, etc.) while others may require semi-skilled personnel. No doubt, the industry framework would encourage the development of existing aspects, such as galleries, while stimulating the development of new ones. The data gathering and regulatory mechanisms will ensure that this proclivity to develop agencies and companies wantonly is tempered by data-based projections and informed policies. The development of postgraduate training programmes, art galleries and capital investment facilities for visual art-based activities specifically (loans, grants, etc.) across the island would stimulate the kind of growth that many would want to see.

A key component of this realisation is that the industry is not restricted to artists, curators and art critics alone. The true economic, social and cultural value of the industry rests in a broadening of one’s perspective as to the various inputs and outputs that make the artworld systems functional. Therefore, the stakeholders in this industry are many and varied, and include trainers, students, legislators, artists, administrators, collectors, legal specialists, insurance specialists, transportation specialists (air, sea and ground), technical personnel and security specialists.

An engagement of these stakeholders would be a key step in assessing, developing and benefitting from the industry.

Also central is recognition of the fact that an inward assessment of what exists is key in strategically positioning the country within the global space. Given that the core elements of the industry are already present, albeit in an underdeveloped manner in many instances, what ismissing is the appropriate ethos that will bring the appropriate levels of commitment, facilitation and support that is required at a legislative and institutional level. This is where the emphasis on industry development is central as the country strives to ensure that we attract the kinds of attention that would see economic and social activities that are directly, and indirectly, related to the visual arts being centred in this part of the Caribbean. To simply position what we do as part of a larger ‘creative industry’ has not, and will not, generate the kind of attention that we desire. C

This growth is not only economic, and would impact on the product offerings of other industries, such as tourism and entertainment.

Such an impact would there affect the social and cultural fabric of the country in a positive way, as increasingly, there would be greater opportunities for social involvement than which currently exists. It is also the case that the visual arts have a critical role in facilitating a psychological assessment and treatment of members of our population, through a specialist area known as art therapy.

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Keita-Marie Chamberlain Clarke in Jeanguy SAINTUS’ Incantation (2002). Jamie Barnett Photography

Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts between art and commerce.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Howkins, J. (2001). The creative economy: How people make money from ideas.

London: Penguin.

Cunningham, S. (2010). What’s your other job? A census analysis of arts employment in Australia. New South Wales: Australia Council.

Kretschmer, M., Singh, S., Bently, L, & Cooper, E. (2011). Copyright contracts and earnings of visual creators. Bournemouth University.

Dapp, T.F., & Ehmer, P. (2011). Cultural and creative industries: Growth potential in specific segments. Frankfurt: Deutsche Bank Research.

Smith, E. (2011). Creative investment in Barbados. Retrieved from http:// businessbarbados.com/industry-guide/export-services/creative-investmentinbarbados/

Davis, A. (2011). Musing from the milking parlour – sustainability and the visual arts. Retrieved from https://freshmilkbarbados.com/tag/annalee-davis/ page/8/

Throsby, D., & Madden, C. (2001). Visual arts industry guidelines research project: An Economic Model of the Visual Arts Industry in Australia.

Department of Economics, Macquarie University.

Gauteng’s Creative Industries: The visual arts sector. (2007). Gauteng: Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation.

Vogel, S. (2001). Harris’ Complete Guide to NAICS. Harris Infosource.

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Pocomania (Chor. Rex Nettleford, 1963) Maria LaYacona Photography

30

JOUVAY AYITI: MAKING MAS RAPARATIONS; MAKING REPARATIONS WITH MAS

By Marvin George The first significant and successful f/act of freedom and reparations in the Caribbean – whatever the subsequent challenges – is the Haitian Revolution. That fire, which raged against unfreedom, was ignited at the fateful Bois Caiman Vodou ceremony of 1791. Recall the scene.

Officiating is the Haitian Vodou priestess, Cécile Fatiman, who possessed by the Loa, Erzulie, is supported by the Jamaican maroon leader, Dutty Boukman. They lead the charge; the masses follow.

This incident has been recalled in works of art - from paintings in Haiti, to plays written elsewhere in the Caribbean – not the least of which is C.L.R. James’s monumental work, ‘The Black Jacobins’.

Rawle Gibbons – who is credited with directing the first staging of James’s play in the Caribbean – in his essay on Carnival aesthetics, titled, ‘Room to Pass’, reminds us that theatre, “is about power, the power to transform self, to affect others, to change, in other words both being and behaviour” and that “Force, whatever its morality, has its function and merit and must be recalled (theatred)”.1 As theatre, the act/ion of the Haitian Revolution sought to overturn the social order of the day, aiming to restore a sense of humanity that was denied the enslaved. It is not happenstance that the Haitian constitution of 1805 2, under Dessalines’s rule, declares that “Slavery is forever abolished”, giving poetic promulgation to liberation. It would take the United States of America, often dubbed the leaders of the free world, sixty more years to arrive at a similar sentiment. With that 1805 constitution the land is renamed, Haiti, derived from Ayiti, the name given to it by its First Peoples. There is both performative power, and restitution, in re-calling and re/possessing the name first 23

Left: Myal (Chor . Rex Nettleford, 1974). Right: Kumina (Chor. Rex Nettleford, 1971)

There is no Bakhtinian/carnivalesque sense of reversal in the theatre of this mas. These are Black people choosing to blacken themselves further. This isn’t north American minstrelsy either.

There is no escape here. This is confrontation: the audacity by those formerly enslaved (the Earl Lovelace descriptor, which I privilege) to play, dance, and represent in the public domain (the road) two memories.

uttered by those dispossessed by Hispañola and San Domingo.

Arandara Ponahara! 3 That same constitution also declares that all Haitians will be known as “Blacks”. To be Black in a New World founded on White Supremacy is as revolutionary as it is reparatory. To affirm Black/ness as the equalizing signifier in a plantation context, which blackballed and brutalized that being, is to perform a shuddersome stroke of subversion.

This relationship between Black/ness and subversion, as it relates to un/freedom is no stranger, either as discourse or drama, to mas/querade in the Caribbean. Indeed, much of what impacts or has impacted our lives (force) is theatred as mas. One of the earliest published examples of this kind of performance in mas, is from an Englishman, Charles Day, who observing the Trinidad Carnival in 1848, recalls a band of African masqueraders “as nearly naked as might be, bedaubed with a black varnish…” one of whom, “had a long chain and padlock attached to his leg, which chain the other pulled.” While Day expresses some difficulty in determining the subject of the mas, he concludes that, “as the chained one was occasionally thrown down on the ground and treated with a mock bastinadoing [beating] it probably represented slavery.”4

The immediate (second) memory is the one Day temporarily/ conveniently forgets. He was unsure of what this performance “typified”, ironically, but a few years after Emancipation, and a few months after he is reputed to have arrived in Trinidad on a ship carrying Africans as cargo. The deeper (first) memory is performing again an older masquerade. While we search for the ancestor mas, we are sure that Jabmolassi in Trinidad and Tobago, like Jab Jab in Grenada, Neg Marron in French Guiana and Guadeloupe, Darkie in Dominica, and Lanse Kod in Haiti, all subscribe to this kind of blackening in the performance of resistance to (and remembrance of) the terror of slavery. At the same time, these reveal to us that there is an older form being invoked. Moreover, the f/act of the African remembering, reinterpreting, and re/affirming Blackness and her tradition, 24 32

Horsehead used in Nettleford’s Gerrehbenta (1983)

defies mere mimicry. This ethos is not the preserve of Jabmolassi, but characteristic of much of what is traditional mas in the Caribbean. By this logic, mas, by extension, is involved in a reparations process.

This exercise of invocation in mas to offer masqueraders a creative space to engage with contemporary concerns has been the work of our creative education programme named Jouvay Ayiti, since its formation after that tragic earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Having resolved to use our talents as artists to address the post-earthquake rebuilding that would follow the catastrophe, we proposed mas – the Caribbean’s lingua franca – as the central strategy in shifting our community’s consciousness about Haiti, as consciousness raising is as critical as cans, clothing, and cement. Initially, the locus of this enterprise was Trinidad, where the core conspirators were working as teaching artists at Studio 66, Curepe Scherzando Steelband, and The University of the West Indies.

Since 2016 however, with some members of the convois moving to Jamaica, the work of Jouvay Ayiti has found itself in some of the teaching at the School of Drama at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. In this context, as it is in Trinidad, students qua (would be) masqueraders are invited to make and play a mas on a theme that is topical.

The mas is presented at Jamaica’s Jouvay. For our students it is performance research, through which we join the global conversation on reparations, as we explore possibilities for traditional cultural forms in contemporary theatre making. Out in the road, the DJs readily identify us on their sound system as “the Jonkonnu crew”, while scores of party goers pause to look on in awe at a form of mas that they know, but to which the current commercialization of the Jouvay would not allow their full political access or agency.

What is the value of this conversation then to this moment?

In 2017, the English speaking Caribbean will recognize and commemorate 55 years of Independence – first in Jamaica, then Trinidad and Tobago. Whatever our individual movements towards the establishment of these small nation states therefrom, and the fissures of Federation notwithstanding, we in the Caribbean (must) know that there can be no consideration of a notion of independence without first confronting Haiti, as it was she who truly sparked the imagination for a face of freedom in all the Americas; that moment when freedom had to be grabbed, as opposed to – in our 55-year movement – granted.

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African Revival Table. Stuart Reeves Photography

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The Haiti anecdote speaks to the inextricability of forces in our environment to the art that we might make, as easily as it does to the centrality of (traditional) performance/art/culture (the expressive elements of Vodou) to accessing the power that we may manifest. Sir Derek Walcott, long before journeying into endless night, reminds us in ‘What the Twilight Says’, that “For imagination and body to move with original instinct, we must begin again from the bush.” 5 What then could be our “bush” but the past, or those traditions that remain the source of our creativity and survival? His brother-ancestor, Professor Nettleford, concurs, both in his decolonizing of the Caribbean body and being through art, which is essentially the ongoing work of the NDTC, and in his writing. Nettleford notes that “the Caribbean’s popular artist… effectively uses the facts of history, in all their essences, both to interpret modern Caribbean society and to inform contemporary Caribbean life.” 6

The life of Violet Brown in Jamaica, who up until the time of her passing in September 2017 was the oldest person in the world, belies the notion that slavery was a “long, long, long time ago” 7 – the myth that George Lamming’s protagonist in ‘In the Castle of my Skin’ was fed. Given her age, Ms. Brown’s parents or grandparents may very well have been enslaved, and that someone living today knew her, personally, tells us that slavery is not even yet in our distant past. As such, the Cameron proposal to “move on from this painful legacy”, but two years prior – in a space where the protagonists of the reparations conversation are working – is a dread misreading of our history and current context.

In the same year that the Jamaica NDTC would celebrate 55 years, the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts would host the fourth edition of the Rex Nettleford Arts Conference, at the very same time that The University of the West Indies opens the Centre for Reparations Research. What an omen! Elsewhere in the Caribbean, massive hurricanes devastate and alter the landscape, rendering Barbuda, for example, uninhabited for the first time in 300 years; these monster storms heated in waters warmed by no industry of our making. Intra-regional migration – as a result of these natural disasters – now becomes a major issue. In the pre-Columbian Caribbean, that movement was normal for the First Peoples who recognized and respected Hurracan, and moved accordingly.

Should we then create a dance to the God in the wake of her most recent manifestation? Perhaps. Nettleford has already lead the way in this regard with ‘Katrina’, and obversely, in music, Lloyd Lovindeer brought us tremendous relief with ‘Wild Gilbert’. Indeed, this too is important, but it’s not so simplistic.

These contemporary omens all point to the relevance and urgency of a reparations consciousness as the key social endeavour of our time. Admittedly, there are nation and denominational gulfs that only art can truly bridge. The presence of the mas across nations lines for example, by whatever name we call it, and in whatever festival it is housed, speaks power to this connection, in spite of the schisms. The journey from Haiti’s Independence in 1804 to the commencement of independence from colonial rule in the English speaking Caribbean took this region some 150 plus years to navigate. Would that it were complemented by art, like the Bois Caiman bacchanal at our beginning, fuelling our campaign into our future. C

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Celebrants, African Revival Table. Stuart Reeves Photography

Gibbons, Rawle. ‘Room to Pass: Carnival and Caribbean Aesthetics’ in Enterprise of the Indies. Ed. George Lamming. Port of Spain: Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies, 1999, p. 149.

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The 1805 Constitution of Haiti. Downloaded at http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/haiti/history/earlyhaiti/1805-const.htm

‘Arrandara Ponahara!’ Is the title of Jouvay Ayiti’s 2015 Jouvay mas, the first in our reparations themed mas. The title is derived from the Central American Garifuna (“arandara”, which means to apologise, or reconcile) and the Guyanese Wai Wai (“ponahara” which means “give back my land”) languages.

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Charles Day. Five Years’ Residence in the West Indies, vol. 1. London: Colburn and Co., 1852, 313.

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Walcott, Derek. What the Twilight Says and other Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998, p. 28.

Nettleford, Rex. ‘Cultural Identity and the Arts – New Horizons for Caribbean Social Sciences?’ in Inward Stretch Outward Reach A Voice From The Caribbean. New York: Caribbean Diaspora Pres Inc., 1995, p.55.

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Lamming. George. In the Castle of My Skin. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001, p. 57.

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Pushing Cultural Identities and Policies in Jamaica

By Keino Senior, PhD

Mark Phinn in Jamie Thompson’s Don’t Leave Me (2013). Jamie Barnett Photography

need to integrate as territories of the Anglophone Caribbean on the one hand, and the wider Caribbean and Latin America on the other, to build our cultural sector. Nettleford himself headed several cultural groups as a mark of the value of the development of the arts in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean to human development. Nettleford recognised the successes of Caribbean peoples, despite obvious challenges, in indigenising Caribbean culture and creating some degree of togetherness out of cultural diversity. Above all, Nettleford was convincing in his advocacy that culture is a vital component in national, economic and social development.

Since gaining independence on August 6, 1962, after centuries of slavery and colonialism, Jamaica has been on an antienslavement cultural identity trajectory (Beckles & Shepherd, 1996). Equally, Jamaica has also been aspiring to be a visible developed nation and has made strides in the advancement of culture so much so that culture is vital to the nation’s development process. Chaney (2001) summarised culture in three facets— incorporating attitudes, values and normative expectations not only specific to individuals but shared among a community; visible social interaction of communal life including religious ceremonies, clothes and food for example; and value structure that informs behaviour in community.

Culture provides a way of shaping the experiences, actions and behaviours to facilitate understanding of an individual and of communities. The idea of culture in Jamaica therefore has become part of a general national consciousness where we all know and use culture to make sense of the Jamaican experience

In other words, culture provides a way of shaping the experiences, actions and behaviours to facilitate understanding of an individual and of communities. The idea of culture in Jamaica therefore has become part of a general national consciousness where we all know and use culture to make sense of the Jamaican experience (Nettleford, 1979).

In the realm of national developmental policy and programmes however, the concept of culture is multilayered and is sometimes used in contradictory ways. The term ‘cultural industry’ is widely banded about, and while policy makers may find academia too obsessed with definitional minutiae (Flew, 2013), Hickling (2015) has pointed out it is the understanding of the definitions and meanings behind the definitions that provide context for policy decisions. In so doing more emphasis can be placed on the collective references of culture based assets and knowledge-based goods, and activities can be more institution focused (Hickling, 2015). For example, one can recall that Former Prime Minister of United Kingdom Tony Blair implemented a cultural task force in the Department of Culture, Media and Sports which was used to trace and develop culture in the United Kingdom. This proved useful to the United Kingdom and soon other countries started to pay keen attention to developing task forces with their governmental ministries to grow the culture.

But even before Blair’s push to developed culture in United Kingdom, Caribbean cultural ambassador Rex Nettleford was marshalling culture as key to Jamaica’s development.

Nettleford (1979) in his writings on culture reminded us of the importance of cultural preservation, cultural values; the

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Kemar Francis in Troy Powell’s Unscathed (2015). Stuart Reeves Photography

Promoting Cultural Identities

It is vital to highlight the importance of culture and the promotion of cultural identities, to recognise cultural identity as vital for self-assurance that societies need to change and develop. This is the self-assurance required to create a cultural framework that is both integrated and integrating, the framework that is essential to allow modernisation, especially as Jamaica strives to become a developed country.

In Jamaica, there exists cultural manifestations which strike responsive chords in its people—language, food, family life, music. In most instances this occurs mainly due to our unique heritage that aids to define the shared identity of self and community. A cultural identity -of self and community- is integrated insofar as it provides a coherent framework within which norms of behaviour are articulated while allowing for the incorporation of new elements. Such a framework can serve to provide relevant, effective institutions grounded in true and traditional Jamaica cultural practices. Unless this occur, no holistic development can occur. The absence of a viable cultural framework will only translate to an absence of a national self-confidence. All these points converge for a push for cultural identity to be at the center of the Jamaican development paradigm.

I am aware that on the opposite side adopting such a stance poses challenges that are extremely complex, both for national governments who are trying to design and follow through on other developmental policies, as well as for international institutions and bilateral aid agencies trying to help. Additionally, as noted

by Serageldin (1999), cultural identities can often lead to stereotyping and the perpetuation of negative and false images about peoples and societies. This however does not negate the value that can be unearth in its use. For example there are the 28 40

The absence of a viable cultural framework will only translate to an absence of a national self-confidence.

Tamara Noel in Clive Thompson’s Malungu (2013). Jamie Barnett Photography

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Such rethinking of the developmental role of cultural policies must strive to empower Jamaicans as a people. This empowerment includes the power to express themselves to the full richness of their evolving Jamaican identities despite or in spite of a historical culture and philosophical underpinnings, issues of socio-economic background, gender and sexuality which may impact perceptions of the allocation of resources.

stereotypes created of Jamaicans through the popularity of Bob Marley and Reggae music, however such popularity has also been valuable for the cultural promotion of the island.

Rethinking Cultural Policies Issues of culture are complex and should be approached with care. But they must be approached because it is in culture that individuals become whole. It is in culture that societies find and define themselves. It is in culture that development is forged in the minds of the people aware and their own selves and of their societies. This space of development brings us to rethink cultural policies in Jamaica.

Towards a Conclusive Cultural Policy Development can only work by ensuring cultural factors an integral art of the strategies designed to achieve. If as a country Jamaica is to see changes in culture, we must continue to empower each individual and community to constructively assert his/her/its cultural identity and endogenously promote development in which each person and community is afforded the opportunity and the means to achieve the full measure of his/ her/its potential. As a country known for its prolific cultural output, a tremendous deal of work remains to be completed to achieve a holistic plan for culture. However, the first steps are in defining culture differences and integrating education as a critical factor in cultural preservation and promotion in Jamaica. C

Operating on the principle that cultural policies must take on a new approach, governments should no longer place emphasis on promoting one culture above another, but should strive instead to strengthen existing cultural expressions regardless of socio economic background, religion and other factors. One of the ways that this can happen is through education. A cultural policy guided by education will serve to preserve and promote our culture in generations to come. For example, in making available text books that are no longer available on Jamaica’s culture and establishing structures to allow young people to exercise a direct influence over the decisions of the cultural industries can serve to continue the cultural legacy.

Beckles, H., & Shepherd, V. (1996). Caribbean freedom: Economy and society from emancipation to the present: A student reader. Princeton: M. Wiener Publishers.

Chaney, D. (2001). Lifestyles. London: Routledge.

Hickling, D. A. (2015). Developing cultural and creative industries policy: The sociopolitics of cultural and creative industries in the 21st century- Focus on Jamaica.

Jonkonnu Arts Journal. 2(1)1-11.

Nettleford, R. (1979). Caribbean cultural identity: The case of Jamaica- An essay in cultural dynamics. Los Angeles, Calif.: Center for Afro- American Studies.

Serageldin, I. (1999). Culture in sustainable development: Investing in cultural and natural endowments. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.

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It is in culture that societies find and define themselves. It is in culture that development is forged in the minds of the people aware and their own selves and of their societies.

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NDTC dancer Javal Lewis. Joby Morris Photography

CONTRIBUTORS

KEEPING ‘CARIBBEANESS’ ALIVE IN DANCE The Hon. Rex Nettleford was Co-Founder of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) and sole Artistic Director from 1967-2010. A Rhode Scholar and Distinguished Fellow at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Rex Nettleford is a leading Caribbean academic and has served as Vice Chancellor (UWI) and editor of Caribbean Quarterly – the University’s Cultural Studies Journal. In 1975 He was awarded the high national honour of Order of Merit; in 1981 the prestigious Gold Musgrave Medal and in 2008 the high ranking Order of the Caribbean Community for his artistic and scholarly work. He was also the recipient of several honorary doctorates from Universities on both sides of the Atlantic. Prof. Nettleford has authored Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica; Caribbean Cultural Identity – The Case of Jamaica; Roots and Rhythms; Dance Jamaica: Cultural Definition and Artistic Discovery; Inward Stretch, Outward Reach – A Voice from the Caribbean among other publications.

Giving Enduring Life Sources: The Value of Archival Memory to the Caribbean’s Cultural Heritage Dr. Stanley H. Griffin is the Archivist in Charge at the UWI Archives, UWI Vice Chancellery and Adjunct Lecturer, Archival Studies in the Department of Library and Information Studies, UWI Mona Campus. He holds a BA (Hons.) in History and a PhD in Cultural Studies (with High Commendation) from The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados and an MSc, Archives and Records Management (Int’l) from the University of Dundee, Scotland. His research interests include Multiculturalism in Antigua and the Eastern Caribbean, Archives in the constructs of Caribbean Culture and Cultural Dynamics of intra-Caribbean migrations.

Contemplations on the Existence of the Jamaican Visual Arts Industry Dr. Winston C. Campbell is an art historian, independent curator and art educator.

His research focuses on the aesthetics of religious spaces in Jamaica, the lyrical content of Jamaican popular music, African aesthetics, Latin American art and the potential for a Jamaican Visual Art Industry. This work has been presented at conferences in Kingston, London, Manchester, Merida (Mexico) and Boston, among other cities. His book on Christian Architecture in Kingston is due to be published in 2018.

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JOUVAY AYITI: MAKING MAS RAPARATIONS; MAKING REPARATIONS WITH MAS Marvin George is a Senior Lecturer in Acting and Theatre Studies at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Jamaica. He is a (2007) Commonwealth Scholar from Trinidad and Tobago with a serious interest in traditional mas/querade and ritual performance in the Caribbean, and their applications in theatre and popular development. He thus serves as artistic director of Mount D’or Cultural Performers, co-director at Arts-in-Action, Caribbean Yard Campus, and Jouvay Ayiti, the latter a creative education programme that privileges traditional mas and carnival arts as the basis for its pedagogy.

Pushing Cultural Identities and Policies in Jamaica Dr. Keino Senior is the Dean of the School of Arts Management and Humanities at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA). He is also the co-chair of the Rex Nettleford Arts Conference since its inception in 2011; chairperson and co-editor of the Jonkonnu Arts Journal; Chair of Founders Weeks and Gender Focal Point at EMCVPA. Dr. Senior’s academic pursuits, culminating in a Doctor of Philosophy with High Commendation in Gender and Development Studies from the University of the West Indies, have expanded his knowledge and practice-base in Cultural Studies, Gender and Ethnic Studies.

The NDTC Journal is produced by members of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) of Jamaica. The publication, which began in 1968 as the NDTC Newsletter, serves as an invaluable source of information for Members (past and present), patrons (potential and current) and associates of the NDTC. The wider artistic community also benefits from the Journal as it shares matters relating to the Arts, Education and Dance Theatre in Jamaica, the Caribbean and wider Diaspora.

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NATIONAL DANCE THEATRE COMPANY 4 Tom Redcam Avenue, Kingston 5, Jamaica WI Tel: (876) 631-5879 Fax: (876) 631-5849

Email: ndtcjamaica@gmail.com Instagram/Twitter: @ndtcjamaica Facebook: facebook.com/NDTCJamaica Tumblr: ndtcjamaica.tumblr.com

Percussionist Jesse Golding. Jamie Barnett Photography

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