The next decade....what's in store?

N.D.T.C.

That's short for National Dance Theatre Company. They've been around for 43 years and have earned a reputation for some great performances.

My mother used to dance with them in the very early years, so we go to the performances every year. In recent times, they've got a little boring, and we seeing all these young faces that we don't know.

Last Thursday I went with my father, expecting more of the same boring stuff and dancers who don't do the moves in precision. This was so especially after my brother told me that he thought the performance he saw last Sunday was boring.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Even though it didn't have Kumina on, (that's one of the old ones where the founder Rex Nettleford - he with a full head of grey hair - comes on with another of the old ladies Pansy Hassan), I enjoyed it greatly.

The standouts for me were 'Tribute' which had to do with slavery, the middle passage, freedom etc, and 'Spirits at a Gathering'. I think both were revived works.

The period of NDTC that I most enjoyed was during my teenage years when you had such stalwarths as Patsy Ricketts, Judy Pennant, Barbara Requa, Melanie Graham, Barry Moncriefe, Bert Rose, Tony Wilson, Duran Hylton, Christopher Morrison and Pansy Hassan dancing.

Dances like 'Street People' gave me goosebumps. It featured music from Stevie Wonder like 'If it's magic, why don't we all .....' and the upbeat 'You can feel it all over'. Then later on there was 'Gerrehbenta' which is one of the African dances carried down through the years from slavery. The drums provide music for this, and the NDTC singers are involved. After a performance of Gerrehbenta, I would come home and do the dances and sing the songs.

So I'd found that in recent years, I didn't get any goosebump feelings. But last Thursday night, Marlon Simms gave me some.

He has a Masters in Fine Arts from some North American university. He obviously has a ballet background, because he is very technically correct. When they had to do moves like the arabesque (Google it), his form was impeccable. (I used to dance, and I also used to watch my sister in her classical ballet classes, so I have a pretty good idea about these things).

He choreographed a piece which I didn't care too much for, but the costumes were very pretty.

So overall, I had a great time. It would have been perfect had they had Gerrehbenta, but I shan't complain.

Oh, final word. Because the founders of NDTC are reputed to be homosexual, all male dancers who dance with the company are assumed to be gay, but I just wonder if that's really so. The two Cubans who are in the company are both married to Jamaican women. Marriage of convenience, or a heterosexual affair?

Posted by yamfoot at July 30, 2005 11:05 PM