Small - Empowerment Through Theater

Empowerment through the TheatreAuthor(s): JEAN SMALLSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 1 (March 2001), pp. 30-41Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40654209 .Accessed: 28/01/2015 11:28

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30

Empowerment through the Theatre

by

JEAN SMALL

dramatic presentation is the quickest and surest method of appeal, because it is the only way with which memory plays no tricks. If a thing has appeared before us in a vital form, nothing can really destroy it; it is because things are often given in a blurred, faint light that they gradually fade out of our memory.... The Art of The Story Teller (Page 99), Marie L. Shedlock

Theatre in Jamaica in the year 2000 has come a long way since the colonial regime when English companies toured the island and performed Shake- speare and other classical European works. The slaves created their own brand of theatre in which the style was that of mimicry and exaggeration, lampooning their masters in song and dance. Much of the indigenous African use of body language and musical structures were maintained through the celebrations conducted in the dead of night on the plot. A syncretism of European and African forms, a melding of the rhythm of Africa and the melody of Europe1 form the basis of art-forms that are typically Caribbean. Marcus Garvey played a very important role in shaping a black consciousness in creative expression. In 1913, performing in an elocution contest, he was one of the early tenants of the Ward Theatre in Kingston which had opened the year before. The tremendous work that he did at Eidelweiss Park between the years 1927 and 1928 in elocution, literary expression, musical con- certs and his monumental theatrical productions is not an insignificant testimony to a very early understanding in the history of our education of the place of the arts in shaping a people.

Undoubtedly Garvey's work must have influenced the formation of theatre groups in the second decade of the twentieth century and the rise of the first great Jamaican man of theatre E.M. Cupidon. His work was mainly in the genre of comedy, but in the 1930s with the growing national feeling Jamaica saw the rise of its first generation of serious writers such as Una Marson, Roger Mais, Frank Hill and W.G. Ogilvie. Marson's POCOMANIA is now considered a Jamaican classic and as the name illustrates it was embedded in the culture of the folk. The 1940s saw the encouragement given to promoting the talent of the less privileged sector of the society and now one can hardly talk about the beginnings of theatre in


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Jamaica without mentioning Bim and Bam and Slim and Slam. It was Orford St. John who encouraged writers like Sam Hillary and he directed Ranny Williams in TWELFTH NIGHT and Louise Bennett in THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. In 1955 Wycliffe Bennett founded the Jamaica Drama League which mounted an Annual Drama Festival between 1955 and 1962. This was the golden age of theatre in Jamaica when such actors as Reggie Carter, Mona Chin, Louise Ben- nett, Lois Kelly Miller, Charles Hyatt, Ranny Williams and Easton Lee were seen on stage. At the University of the West Indies Errol Hill, Derek Walcott, Ronnie Llanos, Slade Hopkinson, Ada Thompson, Archie Hudson-Phillips, Ancille Gloudon, Cyn- thia Alleyne, Noel Vaz, Louis Blazer and Derek Broughton were making their mark on the theatrical landscape.

Up to this time all the significant theatrical works were staged in the conventional theatre buildings until, in 1965 the opening of The Barn, marked the entry of the small theatre building into existence. Directors such as Trevor Rhone, Louis Mariott, Ed Wallace, Reggie Carter, Claude Clarke,

; Tony Gambrill made

intimate theatre and revues popular with actors such as Fae Ellington, Grace McGhie, Munair Zacea, Oliver Samuels, Barbara McCalla, Christine Bell, Alwyn Scott, Dorothy Cunningham, Leonie Forbes. In 1970s Ralph Holness introduced a new genre in theatre which earned the title of Roots Theatre. Referred to as grassroots theatre the content of this new genre dealt with the issues of life of grassroots people and used the language of the people as the medium of expression. A popular money-earner for both director and grassroots actor, the genre spread and was played in small spaces all over the island and eventually exported to Miami, London, New York and Toronto. This was the beginning of a vigorous export business of theatre

A Caribbean theatre has gradually taken shape and the founding of the Jamaica School of Drama within the complex of the Cultural Training Centre now renamed as The Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts helped to forge a Caribbean Theatre aesthetic. Hertencer Lindsay, Honor Ford Smith, Den- nis Scott, Henry Muttoo, Earl Warner, Jean Small, Professor Rex Nettleford laid the foundation work of creating a Caribbean theatre form. At the School, students were trained in the theatre arts to become teacher/actors, teacher/directors/ teacher/technical directors. The problem was if there was no curriculum in theatre in the schools what was the teacher to do with the training? They generally went into teaching and used drama whenever or wherever they could, found parts in plays or acted in the Jamaican Pantomime. The Jamaican Pantomime is proud to have withstood the ravages of time and economic pressures and to have presented its fifty-ninth production this year.

But what of educational theatre? Theatre, unfortunately, like all of the other creative arts has been engaged in as an extra-curricular subject usually as an activity of the schools Drama Club. In 1950 the Secondary Schools Drama Festival was introduced by the Little Theatre Movement and the British Council. The


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opening of some of the principal Secondary Schools in Jamaica at this time - Wolmers Boys and Girls Schools, Munro College, Hampton High School, Ruseas High School, Mannings High School and Jamaica College created greater opportu- nities for performance. Drama activity remained and has remained largely at the Festival level and because it was not integrated into the curriculum, drama was neither taught as a discipline nor used as a teaching tool. The same is true of the Spanish Festival organised by the Spanish Teachers Association and the French Festival organised by the Jamaica Association of French teachers (JAFT) in conjunction with the Alliance Franaise and the French Embassy. The Science Learning Centre is promoting the use of theatre in teaching Science, but Science Teachers seem to be the most difficult cadre to get to think how to use creativity to teach Science. This programme also operates at the level of a festival with strong intentions of influencing the day-to-day teaching of the subject. These Festivals include dance, drama, poetry and song and always demonstrate the amazing creative skills of our children. At the Tertiary Level, the Philip Sherlock Centre For The Creative Arts (PSCCA) at the University of the West Indies organises TAL- LAWAH an Annual Drama Competition among the Halls of Residence of the University and the Drama Societies in Tertiary Institutions. This has grown in popularity in recent years by leaps and bounds and is influencing the development of the craft in those institutions. In the area of popular education a few companies are doing concentrated work in using drama for consciousness-raising amongst youth, rural and inner city people. The Sistren Theatre Collective which started in 1977 with a group of grassroots women was a feminist activist theatre collective that championed the cause of working class women. Sistren was a very vibrant group in its early days, mounting a major production each year and continual workshops for female workers. Sistren still exists but presently lacks leadership which has reduced the dynamism and effectiveness of its work. The Ashe Ensem- ble and Academy was founded in 1993 with 70 talented young people. The ensemble enhances learning and self-worth while at the same time entertaining and educating. The ensemble leads the way in AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) education for young people. The most recently formed group that uses theatre for educating inner city youth is the Area Youth Foundation which was formed in 1997 at the time when The Company Ltd. was staging Wole Soyinka's THE BEATIFICATION OF THE AREA BOY. The Company embarked on a programme to involve the youth in the area surrounding the Ward Theatre where the play was to be staged. Some of the youth were to be part of the production. However they were so enthused by the experience that at the end of the production they wanted to continue with the work. An important aspect of the work through theatre is getting rival communities to connect across borders. The results of The BORDER CONNECTIONS have been very successful and the Foundation is now embarking on creating a network of Area Youth across the island.

Generally speaking, the theatre today is market driven. In order to make a profit or even break even, companies are giving audiences what they want, which


33

is a good belly laugh with some sex thrown in for good measure. There is a type of theatre which I call middle class roots theatre which is becoming more and more popular. The most frequented theatre spaces are The Barn, Centrestage and The Little Little Theatre Theatre companies have decided that serious plays are not financially profitable and so they go for the money and, they have to, because doing theatre today is expensive. In the present environment of theatre that is rollicking good fun, educational theatre happens behind closed doors unless it is connected with a play that is being studied for a Caribbean-wide Examination. The PSCCA, UWI , the Jamaica School of Drama and the Cultural Arts Studio have successfully tied their dramatic work to the Examination Syllabus ensuring an audience in this way. But though the wheels turn very slowly, there is hope. The Ministry of Education introduced the R.O.S.E Programme which includes Drama for Grade 7 to 9 in the Secondary School since 1995 and last year the Primary Education Improvement Programme was launched with Drama in Grades 4 to 6 and Integrated Drama in Grades 1 to 3. The Caribbean Examination Council is presently developing a syllabus for the Theatre Arts which will be piloted in 2001 .

This paper is about the experience of doing theatre in a foreign language at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, while learning the language and the literature in which that language is embedded. What is the value of theatre for the learner? What can the process bring to enhance the learning of both language and literature? This paper will refer mainly to the recent production of DEUX CONTES AFRICAINS , an adaptation of two of Birago Diop's folktales, which I directed for the Modern Languages Department of the U.W.I., Mona Campus in March 2000, and the experience derived from the exercise for both teacher as director and the students as cast.

A former lecturer in French Language and Literature, I was invited to direct a play in French with the students for an inter-campus French Theatre Festival at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados. I was asked mainly because in 1983, when I was a lecturer in the Modern Languages Department, I had actually initiated a programme which I called, the visualisation of literature and the objective of the programme was to visualise on stage literary works that the students were engaged in studying in order for them to have a more immediate experience and understanding of the text, and the focus was on French African or French Carib- bean Literature. We must, first of all understand the difference between the two activities theatre and drama. Brian Way (1967) states that theatre is largely communication between actor and audience, whereas drama is concerned with the experience that the actors have irrespective of any communication with an audience. He exemplifies this difference by answering the question: What is a blind person? One can either give a straight definition which is similar to communi- cating information as in theatre or else one can be asked to close one's eyes and walk around the room and try to find a way out. The latter is similar to drama because of the act of knowing through personal experience.


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Since at the time that the request was made to me I was not teaching the students it was very clear in the beginning that the activity was really going to be theatre as we were simply going to do a play for the purpose of the French Theatre Festival. I was asked to direct two of Birago Diop's folktales LES MAMELLES and LE SALAIRE. The author of the folktales believed that the oral literature of Africa was in danger of being lost forever in the face of modern education. He felt that there was an urgency to disseminate information to the rest of the world on the traditional philosophy of his people. This opinion was shared by many other African writers at the time, most vocal among them was Bernard Dadi2 who maintained that the conte must not be regarded as mere old wives' tales to be told to put children to sleep, but rather must be considered as family jewels to be communicated to the rest of the world. It is crucial that the director should embrace the intention of the artistic work for the sake of the passion and intensity of the commitment that is needed in directing a play and as director, I was pleased with this choice of material because I was already involved in working with the folktale and the art of the storyteller. Every director seeks an encounter that suits his nature.3 The task involved scripting the conte for the stage and it entailed capturing qualities such as the tone of voice, gesture, mime etc. as well as creating the music that would evoke a Senegalese environment.

A call was sent out for students who would like to participate in the production. About nine students turned up. I didn't know these students. I didn't know what the quality of their French was like. I didn't know what year they were in. I had not seen them before. All I knew was that they were students of French and that they were interested in acting in a French play. That is all I ask at the beginning of doing theatre with anyone: that they want to do it. After a brief introduction on the structure and intention of folktales, I made them read the text and do a little bit of singing (as I intended to use song in the production) to help me decide on the cast.

What did I want them to experience? I wanted them to understand the African ontology, the African theatre aesthetic, the significance of the didactic nature of the folk-tale in an oral culture, I wanted them to understand the elo- quence of silence and the fantastic and lyrical aspects of storytelling. I believe that our theatre mode in the Caribbean is storytelling which has its source in our traditional African heritage. I wanted them to know intimately through the use of their body language and their voices the power of the role of the storyteller. This was not very easy, at first, because the text I created seemed to be uncomplicated - even simple. This was because I knew in my head where the silences were, or where symbolic forms of expression alternative to the word would be used. I feared t first that they might think the play was not for their age group and so I placed a lot of emphasis on perfection of the spoken word i.e. correct pronunciation and intonation pattern of the language. A great deal of time was spent in the first rehearsals giving the cast an opportunity to listen to the correct rendering of the text, to hours of repetition and memorization before they even stood on the stage,


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and so as soon as they were gaining some competence in mastering the language and control of the text, I engaged the multifaceted musician, Mbala 4, to join the group so that they could appreciate the discourse and the text of the drum very much in the way that Niangoran Bouah5 conceived of la drummologie6 In this case the actors would voice the text and the drums and other musical instruments would engage in a discourse with the spoken word. There were times when the drum would have to speak in the place of the actor. They soon saw that the text created was not so simple or uncomplicated.

The tales are set in a tropical environment reminding us that our ancestors came from West Africa which is an agricultural environment. The animal tales are set mainly in the forest inhabited by animals which are strangely similar to human types with which we are very familiar. Messages are communicated through a system of symbology7 which were both verbal and non verbal. There were symbols in the set, in the colour of the costumes, in gestures that were drawn from the cultural genre. Central in the set was a tamarind tree. As the griot said, L'arbre ne s'lve qu'en enfonant ses racines dans la terre nourricire6, and this tree symbol- izes that rootedness in culture. The tamarind tree like the Cotton Tree in the Caribbean is the abode of the kouss 9 or spirits which if we could see them are reminiscent of the first inhabitants of Africa, the Pygmies. It is therefore a sacred tree. One to be respected. The presence of la brousse

10 on all sides indicates the closeness of man to nature. It was unfortunate that this performance could not have been performed in a natural environment for spatial organisation is one of the most essential elements in the African theatrical aesthetic. The placement of the audience in the round, the ability to move in and out of the performance is impossible with the proscenium arch theatre. This aspect of African theatre the students did not experience because the stage was at a higher level and far removed from the audience. In traditional African theatre the subject of discussion in the play is a subject that concerns the entire community and so, of necessity, members of the audience ought to be able to get up and participate in the performance, for the catharsis must be communal and the restoration of order from the disorder must be a salutory experience of the entire community.

A griot1 1 was created to be the link between the tales for it is one thing to

read a folk tale, but another to act it out on stage. Though this character was not in the original text it was felt that Birago Diop would not object to this insertion since he offers extensive description of the place and function of the griot in French West African culture and in the telling of tales. There is a wide vocabulary that has developed around la griotique

12 in which the griot, who in French West Africa is the repository of the wisdom and history of the clan, holds a central position. So in this attempt at griotisation,13 I as griotiseur created a griot to be something of a narrator/director, giving explanations where they were required and commenting on the action of the tales. The centrality of the griot was shown symbolically in his central position at the opening of the play. He is dressed respendently in white which is a colour that is symbolic of his stature, his wisdom and his successful


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status. He is seated, in silence, while the drums, the flutes, the shak-shaks, the mbira, the tambourine tell the entire story of the two tales in the form of an overture, a composition of all the accompanying music used throughout the entire production of the two tales. These would be easily recognized later during the production. The griot composes what may be called grio-poems15 speaking and chanting ritualisti- cally, appeasing the Gods so that all should go well, calling for Vrit , for the truth to be told, assuring the Gods that this beautiful race of black people would not bring shame to them. La griotique is the epitome of African theatre as it presents a dramatic expression in which word and chant, music and dance, mime and gesture harmonise to express the philosophy of African life for the purposes of education and guidance. At one time the musical rhythms accompany the poetic lines of the griot, at another they are interspersed with his spoken words. He dances gently. One gets the feeling of the call and response between his voice and the music, between his rhythmical body movements and the music that is so characteristic of African theatre. The griot lumbers off stage heavy with the weight of his wisdom, as the tale unfolds in action..

The first tale is an explanatory story of a physical phenomenon in Senegal i.e. the existence of the mountains LES MAMELLES which are given that name because they look like two breasts. How did they get that shape and why are they jutting so ominously out of the sea? This tale helps the actors to understand many aspects of the African world view. They learnt about polygamy. What causes a man in that culture to take a second wife, what, therefore, a man values in a wife. What is the nature of the ensuing relationship between the two wives. It is generally believed that co-wives live happily together sharing the one husband. This tale shows that it is not always so and that envy and jealousy may arise and these traits are not pleasing to the Gods. The co-incidence in this story is that both wives are hunchbacked, the second one's hump being even bigger than that of the first wife, but the first wife is very unhappy about her physical condition unlike the second who sees it as a gift from God. The presence and the influence of the supernatural is powerful for they are ever-present and omniscient. Man, Gods, spirits and nature are closely bound and one has to heed the voice of all that is present in the universe. There is an explanation on another level that physical attributes are less valued than a kind, loving and caring nature. An envious, self-critical and unpleas- ant nature vexes the Gods. Good is rewarded and bad is punished. The Gods show the second wife how to be rid of her hump, but the second wife having attracted to her the hump of the second wife, drowns herself in the sea, but as even the sea refused to engulf her entirely, the two humps remain only half-covered by the water and have become LES MAMELLES. There is a lesson there to be learnt. Tales are essentially educational.

The second tale is an animal tale with the animals taking on the charac- teristics of types of human beings with particular experiences of life. The King's daughter was lost in the swamp and so an order was given to have all the swamps drained and all the crocodiles killed. The daughter was found at the bottom of the


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hole of the oldest crocodile, but the Crocodile, guardian of the fountains, has been displaced. He is now wandering about in the bushes, lost. The question is, when you do a good turn what do you get in return, another good turn or some misdeed? Diassigue, the crocodile, begs the boy, Gone, to help him back to the river, and after getting there he turns around to eat the boy because he is dying of hunger. The boy begs for his life and tries to get support from the cow, the horse and the hare. Both the cow and the horse do not have very good experiences in life to tell. They have both given good service, but in their old age they are totally neglected. The hare resolves the problem by tricking the crocodile into being eaten by the boy and his family instead of the other way around. Apart from this very philosophical discussion, the student who played the role of Diassigue, the crocodile, experi- enced the state of displacement which is a common theme in Caribbean Literature, because loss has been one of the traumatic experiences in the history of our people in the diaspora. Diassigue, used to being in water now finds himself in the bush, he cannot find his way. He is alienated. He wants to go back to where he belongs, very much like the repatriation movement to Africa. This is such a real way of explaining topics such as loss, displacement and repatriation. Hare, plays a trick on the crocodile after establishing that the crocodile is not the totem of the boys clan. The students got an opportunity here to understand the importance of totems in the African family structure. Had they not understood this they could not play out the ridicule that the crocodile suffered. The trickster Hare makes a parallel with our Anancy and punishment is meted out to the dishonest and ungrateful, to the amusement of Hare. Participating in the performance of a play such as this allows the actor to experience a situation that is similar to real life: displacement, migration, repatriation, exploitation of the other, interdependence of man and animal, justice and injustice. This was truly an experience of cathartic cleansing.

It was when the actors put on their costumes that they began to really become their characters. The costumes had the magical effect of donning the mask in performance. The griot felt the grandeur of his role and his gait immediately changed. The brilliance and expanse of his white boubou, the necklaces which seemed to embody special powers gave the lines that he uttered and the chant that he sang new significance. He became griot! Choice of colours also for the wives, dark blue for the unhappy, miserable first wife who felt abandoned by the Gods, contrasted with the sun-filled yellow of the second happy wife and so emphasized the opposition between the two wives. Colours have a deep and powerful effect on the psyche at a subliminal level, so the colour becomes costume, language and therapy. White is worn, in this case, by the one who estab- lishes truth, yellow is the warm colour of the sun and a dark blue to depict the dark mood of the first wife. The masks for the animals were not realistic in design, but they had a magical effect on the body-language as well as the voice of the actors. It became quite believable to them that man and animal can consort and commu- nicate in this world of the fabulous.


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The actors learnt to work in harmony with the music and the music to complement the performance of the actor, like at the opening performance when an actor had a nervous trou de mmoire16 and the drums spontaneously came in, filled the gap and helped her to regain composure. That was perhaps the best example of co-operation between voice and musical instrument. Sound and music was a key language in the play and they learnt to combine them for wordless expression. The musician created sounds to accompany the moods and the body movements of the characters: sounds that described tiredness at the end of the day, anger, jealousy, busy activity, wading through water, the moo of a cow, the neigh of a horse, the slow rhythmical movement of the female carrying a heavy load on her head and best of all - a man attracted to a woman and deciding to take her as his wife and the wife lovingly caring for her husband. This was an introduction to total theatre where the elements of the spoken word, dance, music, poetry and prose come together in harmony for communication.

All of the above testify to the ability of the folk-tale to discuss literary themes, to teach the moral code of a culture and to integrate the word, music, dance and gesture in total theatre. There was .communication through the language of gesture in the use of the hands of the dancing second wife which meant, I wrap him around and tie him up to indicate to the audience that she had captured the heart of the husband. There was loud breathing, puffing and panting and wide-staring eye to express anger, jealousy and envy and there was also the act of touching the soil three times to display appreciation to the audience instead of bowing.

Most of all here were personal discoveries. We found in the process, as we got to know each other better, that there were no third year students in the cast and that three of the seven were, in fact, students who had started French at the University in the Beginners French Course. Yet they were complimented for their clear articulation and good pronunciation. Those who had some problems with some of the words and expressions had an opportunity by force of the "rptitions" in the text of certain lines and the rehearsals had an excellent opportunity to work hard at the text for perfection. Once they knew that they had mastered the correct pronunciation, this gave them a tremendous sense of confidence which carried over into their course work. In all the theatre work that I have done with French students, a marked improvement has always been seen in their oral proficiency and level of self-confidence after the theatrical experience. One student said she now feels French. This came from knowing that her French was understood by members of the audience, by a native Frenchman and native Senegalese. It takes a great deal of courage to make that leap into the foreign language and even more so to stand on a stage under the lights to perform in a foreign language.

Another positive effect on the lingustic side is the number of new words they learnt such as vrit, mamelles, bosse , bossu(e), tarn tarn, mpris, canaris, nanas, tter, fille-gnie, calebasse, marigot, caiman, mchancet, natte,


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ficelle/ficeler, bont, palfrenier, barbotage, auge, bride, cordonnier, croupe, en- trave, brousse, bambin, forgeron, and expressions such as , "avoir le coeur noir comme du charbon", ttetre aigri comme du lait quun genie a enjamb1, "a la voix aigre et acide comme du jus du tamarirV, "en plein jour, "je t'en sais digne?, "le point culminant1, "puiser de l'eau* , "recurer les calebasse' "lche-mo1. As the students said, they will never forget these words and expressions because they discovered the meanings within a practical context. The structure of the folktale which is one of repetition based on the numbers 3 and 7 allows for pleasant and entertaining reinforcement of language and song.

Most of all they made new friends because they didn't all know each other that well before. They learnt to be respectful of each other's time by simply arriving on time for rehearsals and to apologize to everyone if they were late because all rehearsals had to take place in their free periods. As soon as the free period was up they rushed back to class. This meant that the director also had to be respectful of their time and to schedule the work to be covered in each rehearsal carefully so that the play would be ready at the appointed time. They learnt to work together, to co-operate, to be tolerant of each other's weaknesses and therefore to help each other improve. They learnt to pick up the slack when it was necessary to do so, they learnt to share ideas and the director learnt to respect and accept their ideas in turn. This cast did not have a stage manager, nor a costume mistress, nor someone in charge of props. We all had to do everything ourselves and so we cut branches for the bush, fetched stones, ironed our costumes, fetched drums and other musical instruments back and forth and conscientiously 'struck the set1 immediately after each performance. No-one, at any time, waited for the other to do the work that had to be done.

To have travelled with the play outside of Jamaica to another Caribbean island was a major experience in the lives of some. So not only did they get exposure to a French-African culture, but they had an opportunity to interact with other Caribbean people and in the process to look objectively at themselves and be able to better define their own culture. To have heard other Caribbean lecturers speaking French fluently made a deep impression on all and to have made friends with students from another island was a widening experience. This indicates that not only should there be more events such as this among the campuses of the University but also inter-island cultural exchanges should be organised to foster closer ties among our people in the shaping of a Caribbean identity.

Most remarkably, all the students who participated in the production had very good results in their oral examination and the weakest student moved dramati- cally from the lowest position to the highest.

I must return to Brian Way's definitions of theatre and drama and conclude that it is possible to do theatre and drama simultaneously because these students communicated to three different audiences and at the same time they themselves had an experience individually and communally that has had a fundamental influ-


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enee on them as individuals, as students of French and as a group. From this small experience, this group of seven has built up a camaraderie and a solidarity and there is such a feeling of success and recognition of the value of learning through theatre that they have expressed the desire to remain together as a French Theatre Troupe and those who are studying Spanish would now also like to experience the human relationships and language in that culture on stage.

NOTES

1 . A definition offered by Professor Rex Nettleford. 2. A writer from the Ivory Coast. 3. A concept expressed by Grotwosky. 4. Mbala is a multitalented Jamaican poet and innovative musician, playing several instruments includ-

ing the flute, congo drums, the mbira and several pots and pans. 5. The work of Professor Niangoran Bouah proposed a new science in the use of the drum to the peo-

ple of the Ivory Coast. 6. La Drammologie comes from the English drum and the Greek logos (discourse). 7. Symbology is the study or the interpretation of symbols. 8. A tree only stands tall by burying its roots deeply into the nourishing (mother) soil (author's transla-

tion) 9. gnies or spirits 10. the bush 11. A griot is both a troubadour and a chronicler. Among some of them the art is handed down from fa-

ther to son. Some are attached to a prince or some noble or wealthy family. Others belong to a griot clan, so the artform is hereditary. The griot is a historian, storyteller, actor, director, dancer.. A griot may be a storyteller but a storyteller is not necessarily a griot.

1 2. The major African theatre form .

13. The stagi ng of a tale . 1 4. The director of the staging of a tale. 1 5 A poem or a chant performed by a griot. 1 6 Loss of memory.

REFERENCES

Diop, Birago, Contes Choisis, Ed. by Joyce H. Hutchinson, Cambridge University Press 1967.

Grotowsky, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre, Methuen and Co. Ltd. 1 969

Hourantier, Marie-Jose. Du Rituel au Theatre-Rituel, Editions L'Harmattan, 1984

Kelsall, Malcolm. Studying Drama. An Introduction Edward Arnold, A division of Hodder andStoughton 1989


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Kestelfoot, Lilyan. Les crivains noirs de langue Franaise: naissance dune littrature, Editions de L'Institut de Sociologie, Universit Libre de Bruxelles

Plummer, Maxine. The History of Us, Actor Boy Awards 2000, Jamaica, Wl

Shedlock, Marie L. The Art of the Story Teller, Dover Publications Inc. 1 951

Turner, Victor. From Ritual to Theatre , PAJ Publications 1982

Way, Brian. Development Through Drama, Longman Group Ltd. 1967


Article Contentsp. 30p. 31p. 32p. 33p. 34p. 35p. 36p. 37p. 38p. 39p. 40p. 41

Issue Table of ContentsCaribbean Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 1 (March 2001), pp. i-viii, 1-92Front MatterFOREWORD // PREAMBULO // [PRAMBULE] [pp. iii-vii]Philip Sherlock: A Caribbean Giant (Including "Year's Ending") [pp. 1-6]Remembering Ivy Baxter: Her Life and Her Legacy [pp. 7-29]Empowerment through the Theatre [pp. 30-41]Landscape With Faces [pp. 42-68]Some Notes on Planning and Producing a Radio Magazine Programme [pp. 69-79]PoemMy Father Walked Beside Me [pp. 80-80]A Beauty Too of Twisted Trees [pp. 80-81]Pocomania [pp. 81-82]Jamaican Fisherman [pp. 83-83]Clear as the Clear Sun's Light [pp. 83-84]Trees His Testament: A GOOD BYE FOR DALEY [pp. 85-86]Ascension [pp. 86-88]

Book ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 89-90]

BOOKS RECEIVED [pp. 91-91]Back Matter

Documents

Small - Empowerment Through Theater