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The languages of Jamaican popular music, both literal and metaphorical, are first imitated in pursuit of an undeniable originality. Over time, as the music is indigenized, the Jamaican model loses its authority to varying degrees. The revolutionary ethos of reggae music is translated into local languages that articulate the particular politics of new cultural contexts. Echoes of the Jamaican source gradually fade. But new hybrid sounds return to their Jamaican origins, engendering polyvocal, cross-cultural dialogue.
From the inter/disciplinary perspectives of historical sociology, musicology, history, media studies, literature, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, the creative/cultural industries and, above all, the metaphorical life sciences, the contributors to this definitive volume lucidly articulate a cultural politics that acknowledges the far-reaching creativity of small-islanders with ancestral memories of continents of origin.
The globalisation of reggae music and its wild child dancehall is, indeed, an affirmation of the unquantifiable potential of the Jamaican people to reclaim identities and establish ties of affiliation that are not circumscribed by the Caribbean Sea: To the world!
The interdisciplinary research draws on several theoretical constructs: cultural studies, linguistic anthropology, masculinity studies, gender studies, feminist criticisms, and broad postcolonial and postmodernist theories, especially as they relate to issues of belonging, diaspora, cultural identity, gender, marginalization, subjectivity and nationhood. The author points to the need to bring to an end all attempts at extending the discourse, whether for political or other reasons, that there are no identifiable Afro-descendants in Mexico. The undeniable existence of distinctively black Mexicans and their contributions to Mexican multiculturalism is patently recorded in these pages.
The analyses also aid the agenda of locating Afro-Mexican literary and cultural production within a broad Caribbean aesthetics, contributing to the expansion of the Caribbean as a broader cultural and historical space which includes Central and Latin America.
The late Wycliffe Bennett (19222009), widely regarded as the godfather of the Jamaican theatre in the second half of the twentieth century, brings all his experience and insight to this last, formidable production. Wycliffe Bennett saw almost every theatrical production of note in this period, directed some productions himself, and, in addition, worked as a manager and trainer in speech, radio and television. His wife, Hazel, co-author of this liberally illustrated work, adds her skills as documentalist and witness. Together, the Bennetts have produced the first book of its kind, a panorama of performance, from the imported touring companies and fledgling local elitist groups of the 1920s and 1930s, to the birth of the Little Theatre Movement during the war years; from the small, ambitious groups of the 1950s and 1960s to the thriving commercial roots theatre of the new century.
The book also chronicles the development of drama on radio and television, and Jamaicas small but important film industry. In extensively documenting and analysing dance, it considers modern foundation groups like Ivy Baxter and the National Dance Theatre Company, as well as their precursors and myriad offspring. A pioneer of the Jamaica Festival movement, Wycliffe Bennett describes it from the inside, culminating with eyewitness accounts of the spectacular Caribbean Festival of the Arts, Carifesta 76, over which he presided. As well, the authors treat music in all its variety, from classical through the Frats Quintet to reggae.
There are also sections by experts in their fields: Yvonne Jones Brewster writes on Theatre 77 and Barn Theatre; Dr Maria Smith examines Revival; Barbara Requa discusses dance techniques; and Mary Brathwaite Morgan considers the golden age of drama at the University of the West Indies.
To complete this panoptic view of the performing arts, there is an A to Z of the scores of outstanding personages in the different fields.