Beryl’s dance

“The history of the West Indian dance tells, so colourfully, the history of the West Indian people,” she once wrote. “Through the medium of the dance, we have been able to learn a little more about people of other races, bringing about greater sympathy and understanding.”

Beryl Eugenia McBurnie was born November 2, 1915. She was a teacher, civil servant, and performer. The daughter of Arthur William McBurnie and Whilelmina McBurnie, she was educated at the Government Training College for Teachers, Columbia University; conducted research at Sorbonne, Musee de l’Homme, and the British Museum.

At one stage, she lived at 34 Panka Street, St James. When she died at the age of 84, the last line of the obituary published in the UK’s Guardian, stated, “She did not marry, because she was married to the theatre.”

McBurnie founded the Little Carib in 1948, the country’s first theatre space, located at the corner of White and Roberts Street, Woodbrook. It was the home of, among other things, the Little Carib Company of dancers. Though that troupe has long been disbanded, the space is still the centre of cultural activity today. A new mini-opera, “Jab Molassie”, had its world premiere there on Thursday.

But for McBurnie, the Little Carib was more than just a space or a company. It embodied a movement; a series of ideas tied to dance and identity. Though she was a performer of note in her own right – at one stage poised to take up a career in the United States – McBurnie was determined to start something in her home country. In collaboration with many, she put on show after show at the Little Carib. These included Bele, Talking Drums, Caribbean Cruise, Parang, Ah Passin and Massala. There were shows featuring the limbo and bongo of Trinidad, the saramacca and djukas of Suriname, and the Brazilian Terra Seca. McBurnie choreographed a ballet, “Jour Ouvert”, to music by steelpan leader Ellie Mannette. She was the first to put steelpan on a stage, in an era when the pan was not regarded as art.

Derek Walcott said, “Beryl McBurnie’s genius is of the no-nonsense kind, the sort that is impatient with ornament, falsity and decoration. She disturbs and she communicates joy at the same time. There is something fresh and absolutely true about her work.” Albert Gomes said, “Beryl McBurnie... is no ordinary mortal.”

Of the Little Carib, Hugh Wooding remarked, “It is a symbol of self-discovery. It is concerned not so much with dance forms and rhythmic interpretations as, more profoundly, with finding and revealing all those native characteristics that will one day become the traditions of our region. It seeks to implant in our hearts a love, a lyrical ecstatic love, a love that stems from the innermost, almost unconscious, depths of our being a love of our islands, of our fields and flowers, of our wit and wisdom, of our pleasures and pastimes, or our sense and significance.”

At one stage, Eric Williams said, “It is people like Beryl McBurnie who will improve conditions in the West Indies and upon whom more than anything else the future of the West Indies will depend.” He placed McBurnie in context of a multi-cultural stance which still can provide us with answers today.

“It is from the great centres of the modern world that we in the West Indies must continue to seek our inspiration and philosophy and intellectual concepts–whether it be in art, poetry, drama or education,” Williams said. This was a time when the idea of a federation was in the air. But though that never came to pass, the idea of internationalism is still one that can be drawn upon today in age when the world seems accessible more than ever.

“Far from being narrow nationalism, this is the true inter-nationalism,” Williams said. “Far from isolating ourselves from the main currents of world thought and art, we make thereby a distinctive contribution, not only to the life of our people in the West Indies, but also to the stream of that broad intellectual culture which, the more diversified it is, yet expresses the common humanity of our one, tortured world.”

In her essay, ‘The Story of Dance’, McBurnie traces all of the local dance forms. From the Caribs and Arawaks she lists: the Blow Torch, Maquarris, Owiarris, Wrestling Waraus. From Africa: the traditions of the Shango, Rada, Shouters and Plavoodoo of the Belmont Hills. She lists India’s Ghatka, Jharoo and Ramdilla. She notes the Carnival dances like the fireman, king sailor, marrico, bat, beast and jab molassie and laments more was not known about Chinese dance.

At school, McBurnie was taught the folk dances of Britain such as the Highland Fling, the hornpipe.

“I saw the irony of that,” McBurnie once stated. “I’m very interested in the classics; nothing can be more beautiful than ‘Tristan und Isolde’, nothing. But you can’t give a little girl an aria from the Meistersingers to sing in a competition for her country when there’s a gallery of folk songs or even calypso, you can’t.” Throughout her life, she several times told the following anecdote:

“A Canadian visitor to Trinidad said that the dance was another means by which people could learn to live with one another. I certainly agree with him. Don’t you?”

Don’t you?

Email:abagoo@newsday.co.tt