Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T07:39:41.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Dancing the Archive: Rhythms of Change in Montserrat's Masquerades

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Extract

On 17 March, the last day of Montserrat's annual St. Patrick's Festival, locals and tourists gather at the culminating Slave Feast event to commemorate the island's attempted slave rebellion on that same day in 1768. At the Slave Feast, festivalgoers enjoy local foods, buy handmade crafts, and watch artists perform music, dance, and poetry. Masquerade dancers form a circle among the crowds; the young performers wear grinning masks that dangle in front of their faces as they stamp and spin in the dusty street. Their bodies move polyrhythmically, shoulders pulsating up and down. The troupe's captain cracks a whip that bites at the dancers’ feet, urging them to step faster, higher; the performers become more frenzied. As their feet punctuate the pavement below, there is a sense that they are floating just above the ground, occasionally dipping their bodies toward the earth and momentarily disrupting the driving rhythm of the dance. Their hands gesture in toward and then away from their torsos, fingers pointing to their temples and then opening out into serving motions in front of them. The sound of the masquerade “boom” drum vibrates through the space, the high-pitched fife dictates the dancers’ steps and formations, and the goatskin kettle drum emits driving rhythms that become increasingly heated (see figure 1). Echoing the multiple voices that contribute to the community's cultural heritage, the fife layers European-sounding melodies onto African-sounding drum patterns. The discrete physical and historical elements of Montserrat's masquerade dance combine to “remember” a “dismembered” community, one that has been divided and dispersed over centuries of trauma inflicted by both man and nature. These performers dance the archive; these dancers are the archive.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 By The International Council for Traditional Music

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Akenson, Donald Harman 1997 If the Irish Ran the World: Montserrat, 1630–1730. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail 1984 Rabelais and His World. Trans. by Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Vernie Clarice 2001Stress ‘Bussin’ or Counselling in the Montserrat Volcanic Disaster.” Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies 26/3:122.Google Scholar
2015Volcano@20: Shifting Rhythm and Beat.” St. Patrick's Lecture, Montserrat Cultural Centre, Little Bay, Montserrat, March 12.Google Scholar
Beckles, Hilary 1990A ‘Riotous and Unruly Lot': Irish Indentured Servants and Freemen in the English West Indies.” William and Mary Quarterly 47:503–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Robin 2009Dances with Things: Material Culture and the Performance of Race.” Social Text 101:6794.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chinea, Jorge L. 2007Ireland and the Caribbean.” Irish Migration Studies in Latin America 5:143–44.Google Scholar
Clay, Edward, Barrow, Christine, Benson, Charlotte, Dempster, Jim, Kokelaar, Peter, Pillai, Nita, and Seaman, John 1999An Evaluation of HMG's Response to the Montserrat Volcanic Emergency.” Evaluation EV635. Department for International Development, Government of the United Kingdom: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-evaluation-of-hmg-s-response-to-the-montserrat-volcanic-emergency-volume-i-ev635 (accessed 11 May 2015).Google Scholar
Daniel, Yvonne 1995 Rumba: Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
2011 Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance: Igniting Citizenship. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Dewar, Ann Marie 1977Music in the Alliouagana (Montserrat): Cultural Tradition.” BA dissertation, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.Google Scholar
Discover Montserrat 2015 “Masquerading, Pappyshowing, and Memory: A Review of the St. Patrick's Lecture.” Discover Montserrat (13 March): https://discovermni.com/2015/03/13/masquerading-pappyshowing-and-memory-a-review-of-the-st-patricks-day-lecture/ (accessed 15 March 2015).Google Scholar
Dobbin, Jay D. 1986 The Jombee Dance of Montserrat: A Study of Trance Ritual in the West Indies. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Donoghue, Eddie 2001Montserrat Masquerade: Cultural Preservation in the Modern World.” In The 12th Triennial Symposium on African Art. St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands: Arts Council of the African Studies Association.Google Scholar
Downey, Greg 2005 Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Druitt, Timothy H., and Kokelaar, B. Peter 2002 Eds. The Eruption of Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat, from 1995 to 1999. London: Geological Society of London.Google Scholar
Dunn, Joseph 1976 Dir. “The Black Irish.” Radharc 13/29. Aired 25 October on Raidió Teilifís Éireann. Video documentary. 35 minutes: http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/1378-radharc/355633-the-black-irish/ (accessed 22 August 2017).Google Scholar
English, T. Savage 1930 Ireland's Only Colony: Records of Montserrat, 1632 to the End of the Nineteenth Century. London: West India Committee.Google Scholar
Fergus, Howard 1971 “March 17 May Become a National Day.” Montserrat Mirror (March 20): 5.Google Scholar
1981Montserrat ‘Colony of Ireland': The Myth and the Reality.” Studies 70:325–40.Google Scholar
1983 Montserrat, Emerald Isle of the Caribbean. London: Macmillan Caribbean.Google Scholar
2012 Festival at Fifty: 1962–2012. Montserrat: Fergus Publications.Google Scholar
Garner, Steven 2004 Racism in the Irish Experience. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 1988 The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gough, Kathleen M. 2012Natural Disaster, Cultural Memory: Montserrat Adrift in the Black and Green Atlantic.” In Readings in Performance and Ecology, ed. Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May, 101–12. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gwynn, Aubrey 1929aEarly Irish Emigration to the West Indies.” Studies 18:377–93.Google Scholar
1929bEarly Irish Emigration to the West Indies: Part II.” Studies 18:648–63.Google Scholar
1932Documents Relating to the Irish in the West Indies.” Analecta Hibernica 4:139286.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart 2010Créolité and the Process of Creolization.” In The Creolization Reader: Studies in Mixed Identities and Cultures, ed. Robin Cohen and Paola Toninato, 2638. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hogan, Liam, McAtackney, Laura, and Reilly, Matthew C. 2016The Irish in the Anglo-Caribbean: Servants or Slaves?History Ireland 24/2:1822.Google Scholar
Ignatiev, Noel 1995 How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Manuel, Peter 2009 Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
McGinn, Brian 1994aHow Irish Is Montserrat? Part 1.” Irish Roots 1:2023.Google Scholar
1994bHow Irish Is Montserrat? Part 2.” Irish Roots 2:1517.Google Scholar
Messenger, John C. 1967The Influence of the Irish in Montserrat.” Caribbean Quarterly 13:326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1994St. Patrick's Day in ‘The Other Emerald Isle.'Éire-Ireland 29:1223.Google Scholar
Nicholls, Robert 2012 The Jumbies’ Playing Ground: Old World Influence on Afro-Creole Masquerades in the Eastern Caribbean. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.Google Scholar
Nunley, John W., and Bettelheim, Judith 1988 Caribbean Festival Arts: Each and Every Bit of Difference. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
O'Callaghan, Sean 2001 To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland. London: Brandon.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Peter D., and Lloyd, David 2009 Eds. The Black and Green Atlantic: Cross-Currents of the African and Irish Diasporas. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pittman, Anne M., Waller, Marlys S., and Dark, Cathy L. 2015 Dance a While: A Handbook for Folk, Square, Contra, and Social Dance. 10th ed. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Reed, Peter 2007 “'There Was No Resisting John Canoe': Circum-Atlantic Transracial Performance.” Theatre History Studies 27: 6585.Google Scholar
Reed, Susan A. 2010 Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1990 Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shaw, Jenny 2013 Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean: Irish, Africans, and the Construction of Difference. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Shipley, Jesse Weaver 2013Transnational Circulation and Digital Fatigue in Ghana's Azonto Dance Craze.” American Ethnologist 40:362–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skinner, Jonathan 2015The Ambivalent Consumption of St. Patrick's Day amongst the Black Irish of Montserrat.” In Consuming St. Patrick's Day, ed. Dominic Bryan and Jonathan Skinner, 186209. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Sublette, Ned 2004 Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo. 1st ed. Chicago: Chicago Press Review.Google Scholar
Statistics Department, Government of Montserrat 2011 “Census 2011 : Montserrat at a Glance.” Government of Montserrat: http://www.gov.ms/wp-content/uploads/2011 /02/Montserrat-At-A-Glance.pdf (accessed 22 August 2017).Google Scholar
Szwed, John F., and Marks, Morton 1988The Afro-American Transformation of European Set Dances and Dance Suites.” Dance Research Journal 20:2936.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taussig, Michael 1993 Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Taylor, Diana 2003 The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
UNESCO 2003 “What Is Intangible Cultural Heritage?” UNESCO Cultural Sector - Intangible Heritage - 2003 Convention. http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00002 (accessed 10 June 2015).Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Spanos Supplementary Material

Spanos Supplementary Material 2

https://youtu.be/RMg9-jthj80
Link
Supplementary material: Link

Spanos Supplementary Material

Spanos Supplementary Material 1

https://youtu.be/w2mYQzbM42g
Link