Dr Glenville Ash­by

Laven­tille, Trinidad, has coughed up many ar­tis­ti­cal­ly prodi­gious sons and daugh­ters. It is a fit­ting birth place for Pearl Primus. Re­mark­ably, at a young age Primus traces her trib­al lin­eage with an en­vi­able ex­ac­ti­tude. Her Afro­cen­tric­i­ty is cel­e­brat­ed in her house­hold, and the silli­ness of con­fus­ing na­tion­al­i­ty and race nev­er seems part of the dis­course. Prov­i­dence it seems, had set the stage for a soul of unimag­in­able tal­ents. New York, her adopt­ed home, is a com­plex world lay­ered with racial ha­tred, fear, po­lit­i­cal in­trigue, and dis­trust. Primus, amid this vor­tex of crip­pling emo­tions, fights back-fir­ing sal­vo af­ter sal­vo with her most sur­gi­cal­ly evoca­tive weapon-dance.

The read­er quick­ly re­alis­es that dance, if well chan­nelled, can be as ef­fi­ca­cious and po­lit­i­cal­ly threat­en­ing as a loaded canon. By the 1940s, a Se­cu­ri­ty In­dex Cardis pre­pared for Primus, cour­tesy of the FBI. Com­mu­nism is the Bo­gey­man of that era, and Primus finds her­self probed by agents bent on pos­si­bly "lift­ing" her pass­port per­ma­nent­ly. She ver­bal­ly wig­gles her way out of an in­ves­tiga­tive maze, un­like many of her peers, in­clud­ing the inim­itable Paul Robe­son. The Dance Claimed Me opens a win­dow to the dark­est re­cess­es of hu­mankind. It painful­ly chron­i­cles life un­der Jim Crow­ism, a sor­did chap­ter in US his­to­ry. In­du­bitably though, the most no­table per­son­ages tri­umph un­der suf­fo­cat­ing op­pres­sion, the odds stacked high against them. Pearl Primus is no dif­fer­ent.

Dance was writ­ten by Peg­gy Schwartz, pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts, Amherst, and her hus­band, Mur­ray, who teach­es at Emer­son Col­lege in Boston. They are nei­ther of African Amer­i­can nor Caribbean her­itage, but are ac­com­plished in dance, his­to­ry, and lit­er­a­ture. Fur­ther, they en­joyed a per­son­al re­la­tion­ship with Primus-ce­ment­ing their cre­den­tials to un­der­take this chal­leng­ing task.

In this en­gag­ing bi­og­ra­phy, the Schwartzes raise a myr­i­ad of en­dur­ing so­cial is­sues in­volv­ing pol­i­tics, race, class, and re­li­gion. We soon learn that lib­er­al ide­ol­o­gy and the com­mon­al­i­ty of dance can­not ef­face the claws of racism and cul­tur­al big­otry. And that those at the low­est rung of the so­cial stra­ta must con­coct their own in­tra-racial prej­u­dice: "Hey, stop be­ing so naive.

There are colour lines with­in our group, you know," an un­sus­pect­ing Primus is told, as she per­forms at Howard Uni­ver­si­ty in 1948. But here­in, Primus must har­ness the quin­tes­sen­tial pu­ri­ty of dance to com­bat a world ob­sessed with every hue, every colour. It is a para­dox­i­cal jour­ney that she strad­dles with time­less beau­ty and poise, as she fus­es so­cial rev­o­lu­tion with cul­tur­al en­light­en­ment. The pub­li­ca­tion is ul­ti­mate­ly an ex­al­ta­tion, con­nect­ing the read­er at the most atavis­tic lev­el. This sem­i­nal work ex­plores the realm of the tran­scen­den­tal. And it is this es­o­teric el­e­ment that is most com­pelling. The au­thors deft­ly move from the sec­u­lar, Primus' quest for recog­ni­tion in New York, to her ex­is­ten­tial yearn­ing for self dis­cov­ery (in Africa) which trans­forms and re­de­fines her. Primus' re­turn to Trinidad is equal­ly en­thralling and rev­e­la­to­ry as she re­fines and seals her artistry with the syn­cret­ic but unique­ly "Tri­ni" spir­i­tu­al ex­pres­sion.

The au­thors opt not to dwell on Primus' un­can­ny affin­i­ty to the broad spec­trum of African dance, her pur­port­ed oc­cult prowess, and more so, her thau­matur­gic con­nec­tion to Yemo­ja, Dambal­lah, and Shango. We too can on­ly spec­u­late, as Primus her­self shuts the door to the se­crets of her "pow­er­ful" Sande ini­ti­a­tion. That she was called "Mna", "moth­er who did not born you," and "Omo wale", "child who re­turns home," pos­si­bly lend cre­dence to the mys­tic el­e­ments of blood lin­eage and an­ces­try. The au­thors soar as they ex­trap­o­late and de­fine the many com­plex parts of Pearl Primus. Their re­search is ex­haus­tive and com­pre­hen­sive. The read­er is pulled in­to her dy­nam­ic world and giv­en a front row seat to one of her many mes­meris­ing per­for­mances, The Ne­gro Speaks of Rivers. We read, "The gold and bronze high­light­ing of her dark skin sug­gest­ed the tex­ture of the riv­er it­self, even the tini­est ges­ture, from the cast of the eye to the sub­tle, puls­ing rise and fall on­to half-toe and back to the heels, en­act­ed the rivers flows, the cur­rent car­ry­ing its charges."

In­deed, Pearl emerges as the paragon of raw, earthy en­er­gy. She elic­its awe and even the most furtive of erot­ic fan­tasies. She is por­trayed as par­tic­u­lar­ly gift­ed, but al­so very hu­man, and even flawed. This is the aes­thet­ic re­al­ism of this schol­ar­ly feat. Pearl Primus, the dancer, ed­u­ca­tor, vi­sion­ary and an­thro­pol­o­gist, al­beit a glo­be­trot­ter and pi­o­neer of in­com­pa­ra­ble reach, was Trinida­di­an. Thather mon­u­men­tal con­tri­bu­tion isn't na­tion­al­is­ti­cal­ly cel­e­brat­ed is be­wil­der­ing, as it is trag­ic. "Our cul­ture is equal to the cul­ture of any oth­er race, but we must take time to study it and recog­nise it. It will help us in our bat­tle for free­dom," she is quot­ed as say­ing. Prophet­ic words that ring true to­day, as they did some 70 years ago.