Jumbie Dance – Writings of Resistance

In researching the slave history of Montserrat, it is not surprising to note that the African spiritual practices of the island in the 18th to 20th centuries have been systematically, and deliberately erased in order to ensure that only the Eurocentric religious practices of the colonial master remained intact. While Montserrat has suffered not only from slavery but migration in the 50s; a brain-drain in the 80s and more recently the evacuation and displacement of at least 8,000 people due to volcanic eruption of 1995, this presentation gives voice to a culture which has slowly been erased. This presentation is an excavation of the Montserrat Jumbie Dance through essays and poems.

Dance and American Folk Drama

In the early twentieth century, many American theatre-makers looked to dance and ritual as ways of creating a distinctly American folk drama. They were inspired in part by European experiments in poetic and dance drama, but also by ideas about Native American performance, which they often treated as a source of authentic connection to place. At the same time, Native communities were being restricted in their own ceremonial practices, revealing a deep contradiction at the heart of this search for national theatrical form. Daniel Ibrahim Abdalla explores the diverse ways in which American theatre drew on Indigenous dance as both an artistic model and a cultural fantasy.

Yvonne Weekes
Yvonne Weekes is a writer, arts educator and academic.

Daniel Ibrahim Abdalla
Daniel Ibrahim Abdalla is Lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool and was a 2025 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow.