Hail to the Dancehall Queen
When I heard that Afua Hall was working on a new solo piece based on the iconic figure of the Jamaican dancehall queen, all I could say was "when?" and "where?" As the artist-in-residence last year at Miami Dade College, Kendall campus, Hall presented this work-in-progress during the school's end-of-the-year dance show.
Like many in the United States, I first learned of the dancehall queen -- that fierce icon of Jamaican woman -- through the 1997 film by the same name, starring the fabulous Audrey Reid as a street vendor who takes to the dancefloor to win a cash prize to send her daughter to school. This rags to riddims tale showcased the unbelievable glamor and audacious moves of Jamaica's best nightclub dancers. I have been entranced ever since.
Translating this over-the-top performance to the concert stage, Hall compresses the plot of Dancehall Queen into a solo work where she plays her own queen, Afreeka, as a school girl who claims revenge for her mistreatment as a child on the dancehall floor. In a third act, Afreeka sheds the loud trappings and bold pelvic thrusts of the dancehall for a more lyrical and fluid vocabulary.
Sadly for a dancehall groupie like me, Hall does not literally transpose dancehall's most audacious movements to the concert stage. Instead, she attempts to represent the emotional charge of dancehall through a fusion of dancehall and modern dance vocabularies. I understand Hall's impulse in leading her character to redemption in a serene, pan-African third act. This segment is lovely, and seductive. To my eyes and ears, though, it's the dancehall that's heaven on earth and the dancehall queen my guide to paradise.
Hear Afua Hall chat about what motivated her to choreograph Afreeka with Jamaican dance scholar Agostinho Pinnock in a special interview for Performance Journalism.
Like many in the United States, I first learned of the dancehall queen -- that fierce icon of Jamaican woman -- through the 1997 film by the same name, starring the fabulous Audrey Reid as a street vendor who takes to the dancefloor to win a cash prize to send her daughter to school. This rags to riddims tale showcased the unbelievable glamor and audacious moves of Jamaica's best nightclub dancers. I have been entranced ever since.
Translating this over-the-top performance to the concert stage, Hall compresses the plot of Dancehall Queen into a solo work where she plays her own queen, Afreeka, as a school girl who claims revenge for her mistreatment as a child on the dancehall floor. In a third act, Afreeka sheds the loud trappings and bold pelvic thrusts of the dancehall for a more lyrical and fluid vocabulary.
Sadly for a dancehall groupie like me, Hall does not literally transpose dancehall's most audacious movements to the concert stage. Instead, she attempts to represent the emotional charge of dancehall through a fusion of dancehall and modern dance vocabularies. I understand Hall's impulse in leading her character to redemption in a serene, pan-African third act. This segment is lovely, and seductive. To my eyes and ears, though, it's the dancehall that's heaven on earth and the dancehall queen my guide to paradise.
Hear Afua Hall chat about what motivated her to choreograph Afreeka with Jamaican dance scholar Agostinho Pinnock in a special interview for Performance Journalism.