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The Classics

Rex Nettleford legacy begins to show itself

Published:Friday | October 1, 2021 | 6:51 AMA Digital Integration & Marketing production
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A dramatic pose is struck by members of the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, which has been formed with the aim of regular performances of works based on Jamaican customs and folklore. The dancers, 15 in all, are top graduates of the leading Jamaican dance studios. Choreographers and leaders of the company are Eddy Thomas (extreme left, back row” and Rex Nettleford (extreme right front). Others from left are Shirley Campbell, Mavis Lai, Maureen Casserly and back row, Bertie Rose, Sheila Critchlow, Yvonne DaCosta, Ronan Critchlow, Barbara Grant, Bridget Casserly and Audley Butler.

Professor Rex Nettleford’s contribution to Jamaican culture is immense. One of the institutions he founded continues to make that great contribution. As old as Jamaica itself, the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, paved the way for the nation to express itself, documenting and spreading its own art forms.

Published Wednesday, September 19, 1962

National Dance Company formed

JAMAICA now has a national dance company.  It was announced yesterday by Messrs. Rex Nettleford and Eddy Thomas, two of our leading choreographers and dancers, that the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica has been formed, with a nucleus of the 15 best male and female dancers from the major dance groups of Jamaica.

They will work together now to bring to the public regular performances of works based on the many legends and folklore customs which abound in Jamaica.

According to the spokesman for the group, dance as an art form in Jamaica is now sufficiently developed to be the means of projecting the movement patterns and customs of the island to people locally and abroad.

Thus the National Company will maintain constant research and documentation of our folk legends and customs to be used as thematic material for new dances.  It is planned to have a presentation at least once each quarter. Package shows will be taken around the countryside and field trips and demonstration lectures will be held.

The programme of the National Dance Theatre Company will be a two-fold one, half Jamaican and half modern creative.

Members of the company are required to take a minimum of three classes a week in modern and folk techniques as well as ballet.  Facilities for the latter have been made available by Madame Soohih and the Rowe Sisters studios.

No auditions were held for the 15 members now of the Company, as they were chosen on repeated high standard of performance over the past ten years.  New recruits will be added to the National Company, hereafter, by once yearly auditions.

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