Afro-Caribbean traditions in Concert Dance?

As I consider my intent behind continuing to write on this blog, I decided to change the name of the blog to "Ballet, Dance, and Paul Taylor", since the focus of my writing has shifted over the past year of creating posts. My original venture into blogging was in 2017 to record my six month Fulbright sojourn to India. Then I kept a short blog about being a Fulbright Specialist to New Zealand. 

Portraits from teaching in Goa, India. Photos: Purnendra Meshram

Early last year, 2025, I wanted to offer my perspective on teaching an Adult Beginner Ballet program at the new Taylor Center for Dance Education in New York City, this blog was the result. Over time, it evolved into how my life in dance shapes my perspectives, and it seemed appropriate to adjust the title from "Ballet Basics at Taylor".

The 2029/30 season of performances has begun, and every week there are numerous offerings of dance companies and projects being presented, both here in NYC and all around the world. Making choices of what to see is often based on the named dances and choreographers, and what I may or may not know about them. Below I remember some of the dances that put me where I am. I doubt it is readily possible to see them performed on stage today, and I am sad that this is the case. I will start with works that are fading into legend rather than being readily performed. These are dances that shaped my career and perspectives. I have no doubt the list will be decidedly different for you!

(Prof.) Rex Nettleford was one of the founding artistic directors of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) of Jamaica in the West Indies. He was also a prolific choreographer, determined to develop a dance aesthetic that reflected Jamaican culture and experience. Many of the 1962 founding dancers were trained in conservatories in London and New York City, and would choreograph their own legacies in this tradition, while I was a young dancer training under them. Two dances by Nettleford have stayed with me since first seeing them performed in their premiere years, Street People (1973) and The Crossing (1978).

Street People photo: NDTC website.
pictured are two of my favorite Afro-Caribbean folk teachers,
Jackie Guy and Joyce Campbell!

NDTC performed Street People on tour at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in NYC and it was descriptively reviewed in the New York Times, April 9th 1974, by Don McDonagh: "The thing that most characterizes the Jamaicans is their relentlessness in presenting movement, song or music. They never try to overpower the viewer, but persistently and lyrically pour waves of sound and motion out like a net to catch attention." "Street People is ... about casual encounters in a large city. It emerges as a series of dalliances with laughter never far away, as a street preacher tries to ward off the inevitable slip from grace. The décor suggests a poor neighborhood by one with a rich capacity for enjoyment. In other hands the piece might have emerged as an angry social protest; in Mr. Nettleford's it was distinctly pleasureful."

The Crossing photos: NDTC Facebook
pictures include Patsy Ricketts and Barry Moncrieffe, Jamaicans who trained in NYC at Dance Theatre of Harlem and at Martha Graham respectively, and who helped shape NDTC's place in global dance recognition

For me, The Crossing was a bold, unflinching portrait of an African-American experience of The Middle Passage. Set to excerpts from Quincy Jones' score for the 1977 US television series "Roots", Nettleford blended contemporary and Afro-Caribbean movement languages to illustrate the beautiful and grotesque extremes of the events that included images of majestic African ceremony, willful death, slavery, striving for hope through community. 

Sulkari performed by NDTC. Photo: NDTC Facebook

Jamaica's proximity to Cuba was more than geographic, in dance we shared dancers and traditions. Eduardo Rivero-Walker was born and raised in Jamaica before he moved to Cuba, and become an anchor of Cuban contemporary dance throughout the 20th century. My first experience of Rivero-Walker's choreography was seeing his Sulkari performed by NDTC, when I was already pursuing a ballet career in the UK. My friends and peers at NDTC were joining the legacy of redefining Afro-Caribbean dance inspired by a range of African cultures, in this case Yoruba. You can find a Cuban studio film of Sulkari on YouTube - Sulkari.

photo from Ballet Nacional de Cuba on Facebook

Alberto Méndez is a Cuban choreographer whose celebrated pas de deux El Rio Y El Bosque was created for Ballet Nacional de Cuba (BNC) and I had the privilege of seeing it performed in Jamaica when the BNC was on tour in the 1970's. It brought classical ballet and Afro-Carribean dance together by literal representation of the female, Oshún (el Rio) character sur pointe in a decorative unitard, and the male, Oggún (el Bosque) clad only in a raffia skirt, trunks and in soft ballet shoes. Ignoring present day interpretations of gendered roles in dance, I recall being struck by the beauty of the sensual and sinuous qualities represented in both the elongated elegance of the pliant woman on pointe, and the grounded power of the man with a rippling spine to turn, jump and lift the woman. While there are other versions of the pas de deux available online, my preference is this blurry recording that is attractive to me because of my memory of seeing it performed live!