Roslyn Car­ring­ton

"There's a need to doc­u­ment, archive, ex­pand our knowl­edge of the world of lo­cal dance," says UWI's Se­nior Lec­ture of Dance, Car­ol La Chapelle. La Chapelle was re­cent­ly award­ed a fel­low­ship to de­vel­op her PhD in Cul­tur­al Stud­ies at an Ivy League uni­ver­si­ty in the US. Her the­sis will be on "Danc­ing the Mas", which she de­scribes as chal­leng­ing the di­vi­sion be­tween cul­tures, our lo­cal per­cep­tion of "high cul­ture", name­ly Eu­ro­pean-in­flu­enced dance such as bal­let, and "low cul­ture" such as folk dance. She will seek to chal­lenge this dom­i­nant world view through her writ­ing. Her the­sis fol­lows on a Mas­ter's de­gree she at­tained at UWI some years ago. She re­calls with hor­ror the pre­vail­ing view among the aca­d­e­mics at the time that de­spite our sea, sand and sun, the Caribbean did not have its own aes­thet­ic. "It knocked me over." It al­so fu­elled her de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­tribute to the pool of un­der­stand­ing of the art form she loves so much. La Chapelle's first steps to­ward be­com­ing an icon of dance be­gan when she was very young, re­turn­ing from her gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ship to study in Eng­land with the in­ten­tion of shar­ing what she had learned. "I taught at the Val­sayn Teach­ers' Col­lege, Mau­si­ca Teacher's Col­lege, Catholic Women's Col­lege.

I had a great time putting to­geth­er a dance com­pa­ny with No­ble Dou­glas." But all the time, she was keen­ly aware of a lack of a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of lo­cal art in gen­er­al, and of dance in par­tic­u­lar. She soon be­came a part of the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop, which will for­ev­er be per­son­i­fied in her mind by Derek Wal­cott. "His fo­cus was on the Caribbean-ness, a won­der­ful way to go, be­cause you can study abroad and come back with Eu­ro­pean knowl­edge. It was not the racist ap­proach that said black ver­sus white, but an un­der­stand­ing that one must trans­late, trans­form and adapt what one has learned in first world coun­tries to be­come rel­e­vant to our sit­u­a­tion." She trea­sures her ear­ly for­ma­tion un­der the guid­ance of the No­bel Lau­re­ate. "Oth­er dancers are men­tored by dancers. I was men­tored by Derek Wal­cott." Through the TTW, she be­came Wal­cott's chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and re­hearsal di­rec­tor, work­ing on tour with him. "Along­side Wal­cott were all the amaz­ing peo­ple who were at­tract­ed to him, be­fore and af­ter the No­bel Prize." An­oth­er lu­mi­nary whose sup­port and en­cour­age­ment she val­ues came from the late Beryl McBurnie, whom she knew be­fore she left for Eng­land. "She told me, 'Take up the man­tle.'" Cer­tain­ly, this was an echo of La Chapelle's own heart's de­sire, but it was eas­i­er said than done. "In the Caribbean, one has to forge a path, be­cause it's not es­tab­lished.

As Rawle Gib­bons point­ed out to me, 'You have to claim your space, be­cause no­body is go­ing to do it for you'." Part of the process of claim­ing her space has been her de­ter­mi­na­tion to ed­u­cate and share what she knows with oth­ers. "I had a long his­to­ry of per­for­mance, teach­ing dance, cre­at­ing dance com­pa­nies, in Trinidad, in the re­gion, and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly." Cul­ture lovers know how much her dance com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing the La Chapelle- Dou­glas Dance Com­pa­ny and what she calls the "New" La Chapelle Dance Com­pa­ny have con­tributed to the lo­cal cul­tur­al scene. But even as she ex­pe­ri­ences joy and pride over her fledg­lings leav­ing the nest, it is al­ways a bit­ter­sweet pain to see them go. "Many dancers have gone abroad and made dance their ca­reers. One year I cried be­cause we lost over 75% of our dancers to com­pa­nies and schools abroad. Peo­ple were ap­plaud­ing, but it takes four years to make a dancer. It was like re­build­ing a house." Her "new" com­pa­ny is a group of young peo­ple, full of an­tic­i­pa­tion and ex­pec­ta­tions. She's ex­cit­ed about the prospect of tak­ing a post-mod­ern, eclec­tic ap­proach to lo­cal dance. "This isn't the 'mod­ern' dance of the 80s," she ex­plains. "Tech­nol­o­gy has trans­formed the art. We're look­ing for the Gagas, the new and in­ter­est­ing mix­es and meth­ods." Her mis­sion is still held back by the lack of ad­van­tages af­ford­ed to world-class in­ter­na­tion­al dance com­pa­nies, which are gov­ern­ment fund­ed. Still, she press­es on. "You have a tal­ent; you need to use it." La Chapelle's last pub­lic per­for­mance was a few years ago at the Roy­al Al­bert Hall in Lon­don, be­fore the Prince of Wales. There, she per­son­i­fied the Dove of Peace in the Car­ni­val Mes­si­ah, a role cre­at­ed for her by the late Geral­dine Con­nor. While she now spends her time off­stage ad­vis­ing and guid­ing rather than on­stage, she doesn't see it as a di­min­ish­ing of her ca­pac­i­ty, but an al­ter­ation of it. "I no longer turn som­er­saults... but my mind re­mem­bers. It can be stress­ful, but you can't get bored. You can't get old. It's more than try­ing to keep up; it's be­ing in­volved."