{"id":791,"date":"2015-05-20T00:05:42","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T04:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/?p=791"},"modified":"2015-05-21T20:56:14","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T00:56:14","slug":"la-danse-caraibe-crocodile-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/?p=791","title":{"rendered":"La Danse Caraibe, ‘Crocodile Tears’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Queen's

Queen’s Hall, St. Ann’s, Port of Spain<\/p><\/div> 
\nLa Danse Caraibe, one of Trinidad and Tobago’s well-known dance schools at #32 Luis Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain, presented their bi-annual dance production titled “Crocodile Tears” on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th November, 2014, at Queen\u2019s Hall, St. Ann’s, Port of Spain. <\/p>\n

\"Cross

Cross section of the audience<\/p><\/div> 
\nThe programme emphasized that the world has become a place where people are not paying attention to serious problems, and as a result La Danse Caraibe has chosen to highlight a few of these issues, through the medium of dance. Such issues included issues of abused children, the [neglected] elderly, pollution, murders, pollution, suicide, violence and fraudulent governments. The show featured a diverse selection of styles and genres that spanned the range of modern, folk, hip hop, and tap genres and were thoroughly enjoyed by the audience.<\/p>\n

\"Choreographers,

Choreographers, Candice Ellis, Makeba Gabriel, Takiyah Springer, Heather Henderson-Gordon, Arlene Frank, Gregor Breedy and Marielle Dos Santos<\/p><\/div> 
\nThe production featured the following choreographers and their works:<\/p>\n

Heather Henderson-Gordon – \u201cThe Earth Cries\u201d, \u201cViruses\u201d, \u201cAre you caring or just don’t give a \u2026.damn?\u201d and \u201cDeath Rage\u201d; Gregor Breedy – \u201cMacabre Ritual in Morne Diablo\u201d; Makeba Gabriel – \u201cCrab and Callaloo\u201d; Arlene Frank – \u201cJesters in the Court\u201d, \u201cPunitive Measures\u201d and \u201cPolitical Assassins\u201d; Marielle Dos Santos – \u201cCry Wolf\u201d; Takyah Springer – \u201cForever Young\u201d; and Candice Ellis – \u201cWeeping Rhythmic Estatic Revolution\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Heather

Heather Henderson-Gordon being interviewed by a TriniView.com reporter<\/p><\/div> 
\nFounder of La Danse Caraibe, Heather Henderson-Gordon was on hand to share her thoughts around the production:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name of this show is Crocodile Tears. We have a bi-annual show and its mainly to get the kids into performing and understanding the stage and rules and the discipline. It is part of the school’s all-inclusive plan. This year Crocodile Tears is about those things called “cry wolf”, when a child does things to attract you but it is not really real and then when something really happens, the parents are not taking him on. It also symbolizes those things in life we see but don’t really take heed of, or think that you cannot do anything because you are only one [person].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dancers

Dancers perform Arlene Frank’s choreography \u201cJesters in the Court\u201d<\/p><\/div> 
\nThe show opened with Arlene Frank’s dance piece titled \u201cJesters in the Court\u201d followed by \u201cPunitive Measures\u201d and \u201cPolitical Assassins\u201d. About her last piece Frank explained:<\/p>\n

“Political Assassins shows how we have a lot of corruption going on in our government. So they are the political assassins who are taking people’s money unbeknownst. They are not having any regard for the straight line which you are supposed to follow, which would lead them to a better life at the end of it all. Dance is about telling a story, and it is close to drama except that there are no words, so the audience hopefully should be able to grasp based on whatever is on the programme and connect it to the dance that they are seeing.”<\/p>\n

\"Dancers

Dancers perform Heather Henderson-Gordon’s choreography \u201cThe Earth Cries\u201d<\/p><\/div> 
\nThe second dance performance presented was Heather Henderson-Gordon’s piece titled \u201cThe Earth Cries\u201d. Reflecting how humans are killing this earth. This piece was a flurry of movement as many children depicting flowers danced on stage, visited by the glorious Scarlet Ibis bird, only to be destroyed by wanton pollution in the form of plastic deposited in their environment.<\/p>\n

\"Makeba

Makeba Gabriel performs her own choreography titled \u201cCrab and Callaloo\u201d<\/p><\/div> 
\nOne of the most exciting aspects of the show was the limbo dance titled \u201cCrab and Callaloo\u201d. To the pulsating rhythms of accompanying drummers, dancers limboed gracefully under the flaming bars. The climax of the dance was when five flaming bars were lowered very close to the ground and the choreographer for this piece, Makeba Gabriel, limboed underneath without touching the bar or being burnt to thunderous appreciation from the audience.<\/p>\n

Ms. Gabriel shared her thoughts with Triniview.com: <\/p>\n

\u201cI have been working with Heather almost six years now. We have limbo every Wednesday for an hour. Our segment is very spicy. Limbo has a tradition of the fire, so we incorporate that. I am just here to share my experience with them as well. I am dealing with the age group of five to sixteen years. It has its moments, but it is really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dancers

Dancers perform Gregor Breedy’s choreography \u201cMacabre Ritual in Morne Diablo\u201d<\/p><\/div> 
\nAnother outstanding performance was Gregor Breedy’s piece titled \u201cMacabre Ritual in Morne Diablo\u201d. Described as a contemporized folk tale about the game of mischief, with the children representing Douens, the females represented the La Jablesse and the male dancer as a human.<\/p>\n

According to Breedy:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a contemporary folk piece about the La Jablesse and the Douens and how they approach humans when they come into their space. They lose them into the forest first and they pretend to like the persons, so it is always fake. What I am doing is taking our folktales and putting them into a more contemporary position where it can be used universally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Marielle

Marielle Dos Santo performs her own chorepgraphy titled \u201cCry Wolf\u201d<\/p><\/div> 
\nMarielle Dos Santos performed her own choreography \u201cCry Wolf\u201d. She also performed in Heather Henderson-Gordon’s piece \u201cDeath Rage\u201d and Arlene Frank’s \u201cPolitical Assassins\u201d. In a brief interview she shared part of her story with Triniview.com:<\/p>\n

“I started dancing at two and a half years old under Heather Henderson-Gordon and I have never left. There is a lot of work going into tonight’s show, making sure everybody is on point, the lights on point, [and] the sound is on point. You have to keep practising to make sure everyone is there. It is hard. My piece is dealing with a relationship where my boyfriend’s eyes are too long. Then he keeps coming back and she realises in the end that it is a constant cycle, and then gets over it and leaves him.”<\/p>\n

\"Dancers

Dancers perform Candice Ellis’s choreography titled \u201cWeeping Rhythmic Ecstatic Revolution\u201d<\/p><\/div> 
\nThe night\u2019s other choreographer\u2019s also presented fascinating routines with Candice Ellis’s moving tap dance piece titled \u201cWeeping Rhythmic Ecstatic Revolution\u201d which reflected the movement towards freedom and Takiyha Springer’s hip hop piece, \u201cForever Young\u201d which depicted a class of old and young genres resulting in a new form, which was a synthesis of the young and the old.<\/p>\n

\"Dancers

Dancers perform Takiyha Springer’s choreography titiled \u201cForever Young\u201d<\/p><\/div> 
\nOverall, the dance pieces were very engaging, and the enthusiasm and practice that went into them were evident. This well-organised production was a fitting expression of dance to mark La Danse Caraibe’s twenty-eighth year as a dance company.<\/p>\n

\"Henderson-Gordon

Henderson-Gordon and her production crew on stage<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

La Danse Caraibe, one of Trinidad and Tobago’s well-known dance schools at #32 Luis Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain, presented their bi-annual dance production titled “Crocodile Tears” on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th November, 2014, at Queen\u2019s Hall, St. Ann’s, Port of Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54],"tags":[159,237],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801,"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions\/801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.triniview.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}