Sto­ry and Pho­tos

by Rishi Ra­goonath

Stu­dents from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts lit up the stage at Queen’s Hall’s Win­nifred Atwell Au­di­to­ri­um, un­leash­ing the Rhythm of Cul­ture in a cel­e­bra­tion of Caribbean and di­as­poric her­itage.

Across 14 vi­brant per­for­mances, the stu­dents car­ried au­di­ences through a liv­ing ta­pes­try of his­to­ry, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and artistry—from the ground­ed de­vo­tion of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists to the el­e­gance of Venezue­lan na­tion­al dance, from the sto­ry­telling pow­er of folk tra­di­tions to the dy­nam­ic vo­cab­u­lar­ies of African and In­di­an move­ment. With every jump, wave, and turn, they paint­ed vivid sto­ries of hu­man rights, re­silience, de­vo­tion, beau­ty, and cel­e­bra­tion.

The show opened with The Awak­en­ing, trans­port­ing au­di­ences in­to the realm of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist move­ment in the Caribbean.

Jen­niel Bap­tiste and Tueron McKel­lar fol­lowed with a poignant piece de­pict­ing “a past bur­dened by dark se­crets, where a woman seeks refuge in si­lence and de­nial.” En­er­gy and grace filled the stage dur­ing Fish­er­folk Cel­e­bra­tions, a Lend­land dance de­pict­ing women of fish­ing vil­lages wait­ing on the seashore for their hus­bands’ re­turn.

Tech­ni­cal skill and artistry were on full dis­play in Joropo Dance, Venezuela’s na­tion­al dance since 1882, and in Naltya An­jail—A Trib­ute Dance, a grace­ful Bharatanatyam ex­pres­sion of re­spect and grat­i­tude per­formed by Mar­quise Browne, Ja­ni­ah Charles, Zerkiphe Fran­cis, Scott Hamil­ton-Co­zi­er, Sarah Manoo, and Jele­cia Sil­pa. The show closed on a live­ly note with Bon­go, a tra­di­tion­al lo­cal fu­ner­ary dance per­formed to hon­or the de­ceased.

Oth­er stand­out pieces in­clud­ed All Hu­man Be­ing, And The Win­ner Is, Un­bro­ken, Un­ti­tled, Chro­ma, Rhythm and Style, Not Alone, and Pique Dance, each show­cas­ing the stu­dents’ ver­sa­til­i­ty and cre­ative vi­sion.

De­boleena Paul, co­or­di­na­tor of the Dance Unit, re­flect­ed in her co­or­di­na­tor’s note: “As we gath­er to cel­e­brate Rhythm of Cul­ture 2025, it is with im­mense joy and grat­i­tude that we wel­come our au­di­ence, our stu­dents, and the many artists who bring this an­nu­al fes­ti­val to life.

“This cel­e­bra­tion re­flects our shared be­lief in the pow­er of dance not on­ly as an artis­tic ex­pres­sion but al­so as a pro­found con­nec­tion be­tween body, mind, spir­it, and emo­tion. Root­ed in the an­cient con­cept of Nit­ta Yo­ga, dance, mu­sic, sculp­ture, lit­er­a­ture, and life it­self merge in­to a har­mo­nious ex­pres­sion of cre­ativ­i­ty and be­ing.”

She added, “Rhythm of Cul­ture con­tin­ues to em­body the phi­los­o­phy that art has the pow­er to in­spire, trans­form, and unite. The fes­ti­val en­cour­ages au­di­ence en­gage­ment by ex­plor­ing the com­plex is­sues of our shared and in­di­vid­ual lives while nur­tur­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of artistes.

“We are ever mind­ful that art can­not flour­ish with­out artistes, and it is our mis­sion to cul­ti­vate both the per­form­ers and the au­di­ences who will sus­tain this vi­brant lega­cy.

“This year’s show­case fea­tures the re­mark­able tal­ents of our stu­dents from the BA and Cer­tifi­cate pro­grammes, along­side dancers from the wider com­mu­ni­ty. To­geth­er, they present a dy­nam­ic range of works in­spired by our Caribbean her­itage and en­riched by In­di­an, mod­ern, hip-hop, and con­tem­po­rary dance forms. These per­for­mances rep­re­sent a di­a­logue be­tween tra­di­tion and in­no­va­tion, orig­i­nal chore­og­ra­phy and fresh in­ter­pre­ta­tion that re­flect the vi­tal­i­ty and di­ver­si­ty of our cul­tur­al land­scape.”

The Rhythm of Cul­ture 2025 once again proved that dance is not mere­ly per­for­mance—it is a cel­e­bra­tion of iden­ti­ty, her­itage, and the pow­er of artis­tic ex­pres­sion to unite com­mu­ni­ties.