The shape-shifting universe of culture

Culture Matters

Plang-palang! Plang-palang! Cockpit County was in the full throes of Jour Ouvert morning revelry. People beat out their own dancing rhythms with bottle and spoon, tin-pan and stick. What a racket! Bodies danced everywhere: bodies smeared with mud; men’s bodies in women’s underwear; women wearing men’s shirt-jacs and boxers; naked bodies.

– Nalo Hopkinson, Midnight Robber

THIS YEAR has so far been a shape-shifting one for cultural practitioners. The recent Carnival season demonstrated not just the resilience of the creative sector, but also its determination and ability to innovate. As the coronavirus hovered, artists used their unique form of magic to hold concerts, create films and engage the public in the celebration of our festival.

In the midst of the new normal, another reality was conjured, a hybrid version of life online and life in the streets. The corporate sector and even the Government supported the arts. Was this new version of reality successful? Would we want to keep it this way?

Nalo Hopkinson, ahead of her time, had already imagined traditional characters in the fantasy genre of writing. She imagined an alternate universe where Tan-Tan, midnight robber, jab jab and the others could create, fight, make love and wreak havoc on anyone who tried to tell them they had to behave otherwise. For me, Nalo really reimagined the barrack yard, crucible of the 1881 resistance to anti-Carnival forces, source of the creativity and energy that inspired a major aspect of the festival.

Twenty years after Nalo created a universe, “inspired by real-world myth and folklore,” our culture is shifting into a new space. We are still moving into the new paradigm, feeling our way. But as we move, there are a few truths of which we are now sure.

One: The business of culture is the business of the people. The culture must develop, but guided always by the voice of the people.

Two: Corporate TT is willing to transition to this new place. It understands that in the digital universe, content is the game-changer and it wants to be part of this new way of communicating.

Three: Culture emanates from the soul of the people. It may be suppressed, but it is never eliminated.

“Right here in the backyard jam. We go tickilikki, tickilikki, tickilikki, is right vibes and we beating iron.”

Four: The importance of the yard as a space to gather, commune and share is perhaps now really being appreciated. The thought that a disease could remove our ability to celebrate, perform, pray or eat together made us realise how much we took this simple pleasure for granted, how much we need it. Farmer Nappy’s song captured the feeling of a nation being told that there was no Carnival, but which understood the difference between an official decree and the expression of who we are as a nation.

Five: Who exactly are we? The truth is, we are still working on that part. If Farmer Nappy’s song reminded us of a different, perhaps better, time, how do we find that time again? How may we combine the benefits of a 21st-century reality with the sense of security we get from liming on the wall, making a cook and an extempo battle?

Kambule, the story of the beginnings of the TT Carnival, is now immortalised on film through the efforts of our cultural organisation. The barrack yard is at the centre of the tale, as we celebrate its creativity and its bacchanal. “We are at the centre of our world. We are First,” Lloyd Best said. Best, Norman Girvan, George Beckford and others in the New World Group were proponents of independent Caribbean thought as far back as the 1950s and 60s.

Should Caribbean people always gauge themselves against economic standards set by western systems that do not share or understand our culture? Should we always believe that their political systems or social structures are better, more advanced? The coronavirus hovers, forcing us to ask such questions once more. Will this new reality encourage those in authority to view all of our festivals differently? Not as events that need to be funded, but as aspirations towards true independence?

“Arm in arm, the four of them danced off to the middle of the square. Mama this is masque! Today, tout monde forget all their troubles. Music too sweet, oui!” (One:) The business of culture is the business of the people. In these shape-shifting times, the people are finding their voice. Hear them...“plang-palang!”

Dara E Healy is a performance artist and founder of the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN

Comments

"The shape-shifting universe of culture"

More in this section