N.D.T.C.

The NDTC performance was superb, and in fact they seem to have soared to new heights. 

The costumes were attractive and super-creative, the choreography magnificent, the music well-chosen and the energy contagious.

For the benefit of those not up to date on Jamaican culture, the NDTC (National Dance Theatre Company) is a real Jamaican institution, having been formed in 1962, the same year we became an independent nation.

 It was founded by the late Professor Rex Nettleford and late renowned dancer Eddy Thomas, and their excellence has earned them international acclaim over the past six decades.

South-Miami-Dade Cultural Center

Congratulations to the Louise Bennett-Coverley Heritage Council which brought them back to Florida after the terrible hiatus caused by the awful covid. This was part of the Council’s fund-raising thrust to provide scholarships to the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts, which plays a critical role in preserving and disseminating Jamaican culture. 

Joan, Camille and Carol, drove an hour and half one way, to attend the performance

This performance was so highly anticipated, that the tickets for the performance in nearby Miramar, were sold out with the blink of an eye. So, my friends and I had to travel almost an hour and a half down to South Miami-Dade Cultural Center in Cutler Bay, to take it in.

But the performance was more than worth the long trip.

       

Rita in wheel chair. At extreme right, Colin Smith, President of Louise Bennett-Coverly Heritage Council and beside him, Donisha.

A welcome surprise too was the honoring of the Marley matriarch, Rita. She was accompanied by her accomplished granddaughter Donisha Prendergast, who is an actress, model, dancer and poet. 

She expressed her thanks to the Louise Bennett-Coverley Council on behalf of the Marley family.

 

Louise Bennett-Coverly, a true revolutionary.

 The entire month of September every year, should be dedicated to honor the late Hon. Louise Bennet-Coverley O.M., O.J., M.B.E. D. Lit. For not only was she Jamaica’s first recorded artist, a literary genius, comedienne, actress, teacher, poet and dramatist, but also a true revolutionary.

Naturally, I am not using the term revolutionary in a political sense but with respect to the fact that she, brought about complete and dramatic change to the Jamaican cultural landscape.

 It was by no means an easy task at all!

For she was born in 1919 (September7th) and started appearing on stage from 1929. This was at the height of the British colonial period. At that time, most still took umbrage at their subjects communicating with each other in a language they could not understand.

Stop and think therefore about the fight she must have received in the early days, in promoting the use of the Jamaican language which is today so widely loved internationally and even being taught at York University in Canada and Harvard in the USA.

I remember well, being a child in the 50’s and 60’s, and being prohibited from speaking 'Patois '(Patwah) both at home and school. In those days, our native language was disparaged by the British colonial establishment and their hangers-on’s, as being broken English which only the uneducated used.

Miss Lou however set the record straight and restored our pride in our African ancestry, when she taught us that our language was mostly derived from TWI, a West African language. Like all other major languages throughout the world, it also adopted a springling of words from other languages like English, Spanish etc.

If the backward attitude towards our native language prevails to some extent even today in some quarters, can you imagine the fights and condemnation Miss Lou had to face when she went on stage in the early days to recite her poems and perform in the skits she wrote in Patwah?

 According to Enclycopedia.com, in the 1930’s and 1940’s, “Some criticized her ‘improper’ manner of speaking—a stark contrast to the Oxford English spoken by educated Jamaicans—but her poems instantly became popular among Jamaicans on the island and abroad. The island's newspaper, the Gleaner, initially refused to publish her work.”

Hers must have been a lonely journey, but she was unfazed and soldiered on.

Despite her best efforts though, as a young Jamaican girl, I still was not able to speak my native language comfortably until I migrated to live in Canada in the late 60’s. It was wonderful, to, like the myriad of other immigrants there, have my ‘own language,’ Better yet, being able to communicate freely with my Jamaican friends while totally discombobulating outsiders, was priceless.

Not only was she outstanding in the dramatic arena, but when you listen carefully to her work, whether done comically or seriously, I dare say she was one of Jamaica’s most thoughtful and profound political commentators. I opine that her most impactful work is to be found in the series “Aunty Roachy Seh” where our social consciousness as a nation was being awakened, through her inimitable humor.

Miss Lou’s entire contribution has been so ground-breaking that it needs to be fully analyzed, appreciated and widely disseminated for the entire month of September each year.

Statue of Miss Lou in Gordon Town where she lived for years

In explaining her early immense interest in language and culture, in an interview entitled “Miss Lou and the early Jamaican Theatre” produced by the National Library, she explained that it was her exposure to women from all walks of life from an early age, which stoked her passion.

Her mother had been a dress-maker with clients ranging from the wives of governors and other “top a naris people” to those from the humblest circumstances. To her mom though, everyone was a lady, from “coal lady” to “governor wife lady.”

What she observed early from their interaction with her mom and each other, was how important humor was to conversation and most importantly, how everybody was speaking the language of the common people when they became comfortable.

In 1948, when the national pantomime was being staged by expatriates in Kingston and performed in the queen’s English, she wrote Bluebeard in patois and acted in it.

That totally revolutionized the theatre landscape in Jamaica. However the prejudices against our own language have persisted among some colonial minded individuals even today.

It is important to note that although promoting respect for and the use of Patwah, Miss Lou has never discouraged us not to learn and use other languages. That would have been an imbecilic attitude and she, being a great believer in each of us acquiring the widest education possible never trod that path.  

She spoke English flawlessly and I dare say if she was around today, she would encourage us all to.at the very least, get a working knowledge of as many languages possible, including Mandarin!

Her contribution to knowledge and culture and her role in opening the doors so that persons like myself can even be doing commentaries today in Patwah on You tube, (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj0wewemvZosv5SQNO3vnlw) demonstrates how far we have come from the days when I could neither speak my native language at home nor at school!

Thank you, Miss Lou.

 Talk Jamaican: Louise Bennett - YouTube

(160) Joan Williams, author - YouTube

https://youtu.be/EG_UIhU0uac

DON'T DILUTE OUR CULTURE!

I couldn’t agree more with the late great Marcus Garvey more, when he said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots."

 One’s culture is the sum of the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements and cannot be revised or changed willy nilly.

 A lot of our Jamaican culture has been solidified and expressed through Mento/folk music.

 Mento is Jamaica's first recorded music and it evolved from the musical traditions brought by enslaved West African people. The lyrics of mento songs often deal with aspects of everyday life in a light-hearted and humorous way. They were put to catchy tunes and sung by the slaves or those who did backbreaking labour in the fields during the brutal Colonial British colonial period, to make their chores feel less onerous.

 I am on this topic, as I noticed recently that some Facebook users are determined to dilute and change one aspect of our culture. That is, how land was obtained and farmed immediately after slavery was abolished. This they are trying to do by changing some words of a popular mento song "Sammy Dead."

 This song begins; “Sammy plant piece a corn dung a gully, an it bear till it kill poor Sammy.” However, modern-day the revisionists have been changing it to “Sammy plant peas an corn dung a gully…….”

 They almost had me convinced too, until I fact-checked it with an expert in the field of Jamaican culture. That is Colin Smith, a foundation member of Jamaica Folk Singers and currently leader of Tallawah Mento band.

 Smith, spent many years at the feet of the late, great social anthropologist, Dr. Olive Lewin, OD OM, studying Jamaica folk music and literature. She died in 2013.

 Wikipedia describes her thus; "Lewin was the author of several books and has made numerous recordings of folk music, performed by the Jamaican Folk Singers, which she founded. She was honoured by the Government of Jamaica, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Government of France and by academia for her outstanding lifelong contribution to the arts. In 2001 she was awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction."

 Regarding whether Sammy planted piece a corn or peas and corn, Smith was emphatic. “It was piece a corn.”

He then went on to explain the conditions that prevailed when that song was written. In those days, freed slaves who wanted to farm, had no land of their own, so they had to rent/lease piece a land from their former slave/colonial masters. On this small holding, they would plant, piece a cane, piece a pumpkin, piece a cane, piece a yam, etc. (In some areas small yam holdings are known  as yam grung) Those who planted tree crops described their holdings as walk. Hence you have walk mango walk, orange walk etc.

On the other hand, large land barons planted fields or plantations, so their holdings were called cane plantations, banana plantations etc.

This other folk song called “Missa Potta” confirms the use of the word piece in reference to small farming Smith.:

 He sang;

“Good mawning Missa Potta ,good mawning to yu sah,

A plant a piece a red peas a Red Sally Lan

Mary Jane an Pidgen cum eat it aff sah

Cum out a mi yaad  mi  nebba call yu yah

Fa yu house rent money no dun pay fah.

Smith, a St. Elizabeth farmer in his own right, also explained that it is not unusual to plant peas and corn together as red peas has an excessive amount of valuable minerals mainly- magnesium, calcium, sodium, potassium and iron, hence the trash is used to fertilize the corn which matures later. Corn and gungo are also planted together, as St. Elizabeth has always suffered from chronic water shortage, so the trash from the corn which matures earlier, is used to mulch the gungo.

Anyway, if this was the aspect of farming that was being referred to in the song Sammy Dead, the lyrics would be; an dem bear till dem kill poor Sammy, for the plural of it is dem!

Talk Jamaica • A podcast on Anchor

Talk Jamaican: our culture - YouTube

(268) JAMAICA'S cultural music - YouTube