THE cultural scene in this Co-operative Republic of ours is much more rich than most of us realise.

For when our National Dance Company took to the National Cultural Centre late last month, they managed a performance that was splendid and stylish, with a vocabulary that was wide-ranging and exciting in articulation, and a technique polished and exciting.
The Company has obviously reached the stage where its needs to be exposed to other influences, for it needs to build on what it has already achieved. Of course, Director and Chief Choreographer, Vivienne Daniel, is doing a great job.
What was presented at the NCC last month is testimony to her remarkable ability, for she has welded together a group of talented and dedicated dancers, and, on stage, they manage a unity and precision that is a joy to watch.
The Company had its heyday in the seventies and eighties, after the famous Jamaican National Dance Theatre Company performed here during CARIFESTA ‘72, and the Rex Nettleford ensemble so impressed those at the then Department of Culture, that the Guyana national company was formed, with assistance from Haitian dancer, Lavinia Williams. Others came and worked with the company in the ensuing years, including Cuba’s Gerardo Lastra and India’s Pratap and Priya Pawar.
The company needs that kind of support now: They need to expand their repertoire; their full potential is yet to be achieved.
Vivienne Daniel does what she could. She visits dance workshops at the Lincoln Centre in New York, and attends performances whenever she is in the United States. The experience is useful, but it would be so much more useful if members of the company are allowed to witness such performances.
It was at one of these overseas workshops that Daniel saw the Alvin Ailey masterpiece, Revelations, and fell in love with it.
Here, Ailey choreographed Gospel music, coming up with striking vignettes, including Wade In the Water and I Wanna be Ready. Ailey described his work as songs that yearn for deliverance; that speak of trouble; and this world’s trials and tribulations.
Daniel adapted Ailey’s choreography for her presentation, and, in so doing, she scored what was a show-stopper in I Wanna be Ready.
To the lyrics that beg to be prepared to be with Jesus, after repentance, the dancer in Daniel’s version used the floor of the stage for his prop, hardly ever leaving it, reaching for the sky as he wallowed and rolled, pleading with his God to relieve him of his burdens. This was indeed a bravura performance.
And then there was the sequence, Wade In the Water, with a swathe of cloth billowing across the stage; the dancers in white dresses using their wide skirts to enhance their movements; and the devotional leader holding aloft a huge, white umbrella.
There was more to this year’s Seasons.
The Reggae sequence was replete with the abandon that only dancers from our Region could come up with, and a Fragmented Suite offered some delightful solo and duo and ensemble work.
It is clear that the Company could go places; and we owe it to these eager and talented young people to allow them to extend themselves beyond what we could ever imagine.