As the voice of Patsy Ricketts, former Dance Theatre of Harlem principal dancer, dubbed the ‘grand dame of Jamaican dance’ by Jamaican Observer entertainment writer Basil Waters, sings out “Yenge mama gimme yenge oh...” the drums and Ghanaian axatse (rattle) joins her as the musicians and myself create vocal harmonies to compliment. Dancing bodies articulate movements which complete the polyrhythmic dynamism of the dance on stage. The audience cheer and applaud the performance as the entertainment staff at Breezes Spa Resort, congratulate us. Invited to the microphone, I, ‘H’ Patten as artistic director of this project inform the audience that this was not a ‘group’ but rather individuals who had met for the first time at Gatwick airport six days previously en route to the Korotech Dancefest 2012 Jamaican residency. Mouths visibly dropped open at the achievement of these participants. This was the culmination of months of negotiations and telephone calls, a special reception hosted by the Jamaican High Commission in London, and numerous emails back and forth to two UK universities and a number of individuals. Dancers, musicians, choreographers and a professional business development consultant had all been drawn together to experience Jamaica’s cosmic energy, through participation in Korotech Dancefest 2012.

Korotech Dancefest 2012 was an exciting week-long intensive residency which ran from April 14 - 21 2012, providing 14 UK based practitioners and students, with a unique programme of professional development training in the sun-kissed setting of Breezes Spa Resort, Trelawny on Jamaica’s north coast. Korotech Dancefest is the second self financed professional development training workshop produced by Koromanti Arts, a company I established in 2002 to produce high quality performance arts and training within African Peoples Dance (APD). Koromanti’s first international residency took place in January 2008 with 25 participants travelling to The Gambia, West Africa to study music, dance and culture. The Gambian residency featured Dr MoniKa Lawrence, former principal dancer with National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica more commonly know as NDTC and director of Stella Maris Dance Ensemble (Stella Maris), specially flown in from Jamaica; the Kura Chow Dance Ensemble, one of Gambia’s leading companies; and myself, as artistic director of Koromanti Arts and an independent artist working across both the African and Caribbean dance idioms, using traditional and contemporary approaches.

Despite the huge success of the Gambia fieldtrip, I had often spoken about, but had not managed to organise a Jamaican follow-up residency. I was finally inspired to go ahead with Korotech Dancefest 2012 by my experiences as an ADAD Trailblazer in 2009/10. The specialist professional training from the Trailblazers fellowship rekindled my desire to share the knowledge I gained over many years, to both assist other artists and help raise standards within the APD sector. At the outset of my dance career in 1982, training in the APD sector was mainly facilitated through in-house company training. It was as part of Danse De L’Afrique that I trained in Ghana under Nii-Yartey and The Ghana Dance Ensemble. The development of the Black Dance Development Trust (BDDT) in 1985 provided centralised training through intermittent weekend training courses and the BDDT Annual Summer-schools. In addition to bringing companies and independent artists together in dialogue, it also provided opportunities to learn from master artists. After the demise of the Trust, I was lucky enough to be invited to choreograph for a number of companies across Africa and the Caribbean. This enabled me to develop international connections, which often led to collaborations, such as the africa95 and British Council Pan-Essent-Move international dance workshop in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. This groundbreaking workshop involved me working with government ministries across 12 African countries and the UK in order to draw together 32 artists who succeeded in pushing the boundaries of African dance and initiated dialogue between artists on the continent, in Europe and the Americas. Designed to provide a unique opportunity for UK based artists to acquire high level professional dance training, Korotech Dancefest 2012 also focused on business acumen and the development of international connections. The aim was to expose artists not only to opportunities for international connections between dance professionals and companies, but also formal education and research institutions in order to better position themselves within the growing global market. The Korotech training programme therefore included excursions to the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica (ACIJ); the Edna Manley School of Performing Arts; and the Jamaica School of Dance (JSD). It also featured a specially tailored business development workshop as an important supplement to the dance training.

Korotech Dancefest 2012 training was delivered by leading tutors in African and Caribbean music and dance. Orville Hall, director of Dance Xpressionz, a leading commercial company within the dancehall field, taught and contextualized dancehall movements, from Bogle originated by Gerald ‘Bogle’ Levy in the 1990s through to ‘Tender Touch,’ recently created by Dance Xpressionz. Accompanied by the Xpressionz company members and Dancer Bling, an independent dancehall specialist, Hall’s classes, when taken in conjunction with his lecture demonstrations, functioned as a physical historical overview of the dancehall genre.

 

Patsy Ricketts aptly fused her NDTC and Harlem Dance Theatre experience in teaching a blend of Nyabinghi and Jamaican traditional vocabulary including Dinki Mini, Revival and Kumina alongside Caribbean style modern dance technique. Dr MoniKa Lawrence utilised the approaches developed working with her own company and her years of experience in NDTC to give instruction on choreography. My own input teaching Contemporary African dance, based on the Nigerian Dowee and the Tanzanian Isikuti dances, served to impart my approach to using and developing APD vocabulary thematically. My focus was therefore on the principle of undulation and pulsation rather than dance steps. This approach enabled all the vocabulary taught between Ricketts, Lawrence and myself to manifest within the final piece of choreography, which a number of participants found “challenging but inspiring”.

The participants were also challenged by the business development workshop delivered by Lynda Rosenior-Patten, a Cultural Leadership Programme business development associate award winner, which focussed on developing and sustaining international contacts and connections. The workshop also explored creative strategies and approaches to converting connections into future collaborations. Calvin Mitchell, percussionist for Jamaica National Pantomime and JSD, alongside Charles James, former Adzido Pan African Dance Ensemble musician and percussionist for Irie! dance theatre, lead Caribbean and African music workshops respectively. Exploring polyrhythmic structure and teaching the use of utterance and song in music delivery, these sessions reinforced and were also reinforced by the rhythmic approaches within the choreographic sessions. This enabled participants to “see the music and hear the dance” as the late Professor A. M. Opoku, former artistic director of Ghana Dance Ensemble and founding director of Dance Studies at the University of Ghana, often stated.

An important part of the networking and acculturating process for the Korotech participants were excursions. On Monday 16 April after a three hour journey through twisting country roads we arrived in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital. Following a further thirty minute wait on the bus, assisted by the Dance Xpressionz artists, we secured a prime position in the Up-Town Mondays dancehall session. In the Savannah Plaza where this weekly session takes place a video-light suddenly swung to the balcony behind us, mid-way through panning across the audience. A female dancer is revealed, balancing upside-down on top of the balcony railings, bubbling and whining (winding) her pelvis to the dancehall riddim (rhythm). This clearly sent out a challenge to all the female artists in the house. The dancehall massive (crowd) looked on as the Selector, (the person who voices over the music to encourage the audience to dance and perform acrobatic feats), gave her a ‘shout out’ (an acknowledgement usually calling out their name and/or praises).

Around 3.30am the crowd moved to Hot Mondays. With Dance Xpressionz, the Kortech participants again established themselves amongst the dancers, opposite the Selector and the sound decks. I recognise many of the main dancehall crews, squads and individuals such as Ding Dong, Shelly Belly, Dancer Bling, and Kartoon. The Selector began his shout out of key dancers in the house, signalling the build up for the dance floor battle. Suddenly, the music ‘lock off’ (stopped) and the session was closed down by the police who periodically enforce the noise abatement act 1997, which requires indoor sessions to finish by 4am. This law has become increasingly enforced in recent times although the majority of these sessions usually continue until dawn without interference.

The dancehall excursion was aimed at enabling Korotech participants to connect with Jamaican dancehall artists and the dancehall industry. They witnessed the importance of the video-light as a tool for artists to reach out and make international connections. With their artistry digitally captured on video, the artist’s image may be streamed across continents, enabling them to ‘buss’ (gain popularity and success) on foreign shores. Back in class, the Korotech participants recapped their experience during the dancehall excursion with Hall and Dancer Bling. This enabled key issues such as socio-economic conditions, gender, politics, self-image and worldviews within Jamaica, to be examined.

Wednesday morning, the final Kingston excursion, first stop the Dance Xpressionz studios in Half Way Tree. The Xpressionz dancers taught a

dynamic class on the female nuances of the dancehall genre. Excited and suitably energised, the Kortech participants were then taken to ACIJ and received an introduction to their archive, which included the Jamaica Memory Bank Project (JMBP). After viewing archival footage featuring Kumina, a Jamaican religious dance of Ki-Kongo origins, securing lunch en route, the participants toured Edna Manley School of Performing Arts. This served to illustrate the inter-connectivity of the arts within Jamaica, with the School of Art, School of Drama, School of Music and JSD all in close proximity on one campus. The participants received a guided tour of JSD by Marlon Simms, principal dancer in NDTC and JSD dance tutor, who extended an open invitation for their future attendance of the JSD summer school. An hour later, the Korotech participants were hot and sweaty, taking company class with Stella Maris Dance Ensemble in the main JSD studio. Under the watchful eye of Dr Lawrence, Tokie Gonzalez, a Cuban dancer originally brought to Jamaica to join the NDTC dancers in the seventies led an exciting warm up class, syncretizing Afro-Cuban and modern dance. I then taught a masterclass to both Stella Maris and Korotech dancers, revising and extending the Dowee and Isikuti dance material. The dancers were “exhausted, but well fed” Ricketts remarked, as I honored the musicians and finished the class. Stella Maris then performed a piece from their repertoire to round off the evening.

Korotech Dancefest 2012 was a great success judging from both the formal and informal feedback we have received from participants. The visit to Edna Manley School of Performing Arts served to introduce them to a key centre/resource for the arts in Jamaica. A number of participants have already expressed a wish to return for the JSD summer school and a number of University of Surrey students have expressed a desire to do their placement year with the JSD and Stella Maris Dance Ensemble. JSD and Stella Maris have both expressed an interest in developing discussions with the UK institutions to facilitate placements and future exchanges for UK and Jamaican students. In my capacity as artistic director, I was invited to teach a masterclass at NDTC which was highly successful and not only renewed old contacts but re-introduced me to the company’s younger generation. This project also enabled connections to be established between Jamaican partners who would not have otherwise worked together. Most importantly, the participants, having come from disparate backgrounds and institutions at differing levels, have now established both national and international connections which they have already begun to capitalise on.