Dr Glenvile Ash­by

She lit up with men­tion of the Ur­ban Bush Women dance com­pa­ny, and lat­er ex­plained Bushasche-the War Dance, a sig­na­ture high in­ten­si­ty dance num­ber with ori­gins in the Con­go. The war­riors, it is said "chal­lenge the God of War and de­stroy him. By his de­struc­tion there will be peace." She men­tioned Alphonse Cim­ber, one the most in­flu­en­tial drum­mers in the New York African dance cir­cuit. And Chuck Davis, the founder of Dance Africa, a lead­ing fig­ure in African dance in the US. Then, she paused and re­flect­ed-her words were in­struc­tive and in­sight­ful. The woman at the cen­tre of this dis­course on Eman­ci­pa­tion is Peg­gy Schwartz, pro­fes­sor of dance at the pres­ti­gious Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Amherst. She is al­so found­ing artis­tic di­rec­tor of the Sanko­fa Dance Project: Cel­e­brat­ing African Tra­di­tions in Amer­i­can Dance.

Equal­ly im­por­tant is her aware­ness of Trin­bag­on­ian cul­ture, hav­ing stayed on the twin is­land while re­search­ing The Dance Claimed Me, a bi­og­ra­phy chron­i­cling the artis­tic con­tri­bu­tion of the late Trinida­di­an icon, Pearl Primus. In an emo­tion­al in­ter­view Pro­fes­sor Schwartz dis­cussed ped­a­gogy and African cul­ture, her en­thu­si­asm tem­pered by the naked re­al­i­ty of Africa's in­ternecine strife, po­lit­i­cal tur­moil and un­der-de­vel­op­ment. "It's iron­ic, a kind of dis­con­nect be­tween the cul­tur­al boon in the US and the Caribbean, and what is go­ing on in Africa," she said. "There is a re­nais­sance of African tra­di­tions in the US. Dance and cul­ture are now be­ing whole-heart­ed­ly em­braced at the el­e­men­tary, sec­ondary and uni­ver­si­ty lev­els through­out the US." It is a view shared by Joan Finkel­stein, di­rec­tor of dance pro­grammes at the New York City De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion, who ear­li­er stat­ed that the de­part­ment's "Blue­print for teach­ing and learn­ing in dance calls for a broad­ly in­clu­sive cur­ricu­lum, and var­i­ous African dance tra­di­tions are part of the scope."

As T&T cel­e­brates Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, Schwartz be­lieves that the so­ci­ety should re­flect on the sig­nif­i­cance of dance as an in­struc­tive and ed­u­ca­tion­al tool with last­ing so­cial im­pli­ca­tions. "I have seen the in­cred­i­ble im­pact African cul­ture has had at el­e­men­tary, sec­ondary and uni­ver­si­ty lev­els." She cit­ed Pearl Primus' work as "ex­em­plary," and the stan­dard for ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions. "What she did, and what is be­ing done in the US, is de­vel­op cur­ric­u­la that teach­ers can fol­low. It is im­por­tant that the lec­ture-demon­stra­tion for­mat be in­sti­tut­ed be­cause it re­al­ly fa­cil­i­tates the learn­ing process." Schwartz spoke of the dig­ni­ty and beau­ty of the African her­itage which she stat­ed "should not be ex­oti­cised." "What I have learned as an in­struc­tor is that African dance and cul­ture should not be lim­it­ed to the stage. There is an im­por­tant place for it at all lev­els of ex­pres­sion-the class­room, busi­ness and places of wor­ship. "I be­lieve that cul­tur­al preser­va­tion is the most au­then­tic way of af­firm­ing and cel­e­brat­ing who you are," she said, re­call­ing her days in Trinidad when she was "tak­en aback" by the myr­i­ad of cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions.

"The won­der­ful as­pect of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day and oth­er eth­nic hol­i­days on the is­land is that sense of uni­ty amid di­ver­si­ty."

She lat­er ex­plained the ho­mo­gene­ity of African cul­ture. "You just can­not sep­a­rate dance, mu­sic, and rhythm from spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. Nei­ther can you teach African cul­ture with­out un­der­stand­ing its im­por­tance to in­di­vid­ual and so­cial de­vel­op­ment." She de­fined Eman­ci­pa­tion as "re­triev­ing the roots of one's iden­ti­ty to­ward en­light­en­ment," as she de­cod­ed the essence of African dance and its uni­ver­sal at­trib­ut­es. "The very rit­u­als of dance con­tain the so­cial or­der. The fun­da­men­tal move­ment of African dance is very pro­found. "It teach­es who to re­spect, who to love, who to fear; how to re­late to your fam­i­ly, your peers and the so­ci­ety; in turn, how the fam­i­ly re­lates to the so­ci­ety, and the so­ci­ety to the en­vi­ron­ment and the uni­verse. Every­thing has its place." She went fur­ther, de­scrib­ing the US and the Caribbean as a repos­i­to­ry for African cul­ture, a place that has pre­served the tra­di­tions, that can now serve to eman­ci­pate a trou­bled Africa in a tan­gi­ble way. Schwartz spoke of Pearl Primus with af­fec­tion, re­fer­ring to her as "one of the prog­en­i­tors of Pan African­ism," and laud­ed her es­tab­lish­ment of the Kona­ma Kende School in Liberia in 1960, with the aim of bridg­ing Africa with its Di­as­po­ra and the rest of the world.

How­ev­er, Primus' vi­sion to in­sti­tu­tion­alise the short-lived Earth The­atre-a school for Caribbean, Amer­i­can, and African Arts was nev­er re­alised. Schwartz though was not daunt­ed, and called for greater transcon­ti­nen­tal co­op­er­a­tion. Mind­ful of the many dishar­mo­nious forces at work on the con­ti­nent, she called for more cul­tur­al and ed­u­ca­tion­al in­vest­ment from the US and Caribbean. "This is about grat­i­tude and giv­ing back to a place that has giv­en so much. This is what African val­ues are about."

There was si­lence. Pro­fes­sor Schwartz had on­ly now un­der­stood the enor­mi­ty of her words.

Dr Glenville Ash­by

New York for­eign cor­re­spon­dent

The Guardian Me­dia Group