People like Linda Griffith sometimes never really get their fair share of either recognition or reward for their selfless and unstinting contribution to nation-building; and people like her never seem to stop to measure the magnitude of their contribution against the paucity of the reward. They are simply too engrossed in giving.
For over forty years Linda has given of herself as a creative dancer, an instructor and as Director of the National School of Dance, perhaps the most celebrated cultural institution in Guyana; and in the process, she says, she has been rewarded by a personal satisfaction that derives from the knowledge that what she has given has helped to transform the national cultural landscape…….. for the better.
She had arrived late and with apologies for our meeting last Tuesday. I watched her kick off her shoes and glide across the studio floor with an easy, rhythmic gait, a graceful movement that could only have derived from years of well-rehearsed artistic motion.
I had looked forward to our meeting, our school reunion. We had been contemporaries in secondary school and I had not spoken with her since we had both left school more than three decades earlier, until a few weeks earlier at a church where some members of the National Dance Company were performing at a funeral.
When we met last week we reflected for a while on our years at school together, particularly on her athletic prowess, her involvement in every conceivable field of physical activity that school had to offer. I recalled that in those days she was probably a good enough table tennis player to become a national star had she not chosen to divide her time among so many extra-curricular pursuits.
I wasn’t sure of the chronology of her career as a dancer. I told her that I thought that her first big moment came when she was among hundreds of schoolchildren from across Guyana chosen for the honor of performing at a huge cultural pageant at the National Park to mark Guyana’s attainment of independence. She seemed pleased over my recollection but located the beginning of her career in a much earlier time. “Dance has always been a part of my life. My father, Henry Griffith, was a ballroom dancer. As a child he would place me on his insteps and teach me the different types of waltzes. He would bring books to our home, books that provided instructions of positions of feet and hands and other technical things about dancing.”
Then she reminded me of our Christmas parties at school and about how much she loved to dance with her favorite partner, another school mate of ours called Dennis Bollers. Since I had no recollection of ever having attended any of those Christmas parties I conceded that my earlier guess about the start of her dance career had been wide of the mark.
She told me too about her even earlier fascination with plaiting the Maypole, an event for which she was overlooked because of her height. “It seemed that the taller girls were best suited to the Maypole and I was never chosen.” Her exclusion drove her to stage her own Maypole event, recruiting her nine brothers and sisters into a makeshift event using odd bits of string and conveniently situated posts.
We ‘dropped’ names……….. Beryl Mc Byrnie, the Trinidadian dance instructor who came to Guyana to coordinate the dance section of the 1966 Independence pageant and who helped Linda’s dance career; and the revered American-Haitian dancer Lavinia Williams, the founder of the National School of Dance under whose tutelage her talents were honed. Lavinia was her mentor. She studied under the distinguished instructor and was one of the pioneer students at the National School of Dance founded by Lavinia in 1974.
At the National School of Dance where she is both Director and an Instructor she exudes an unpretentious confidence that has won her the undisguised respect of her colleagues. The respect she enjoys was earned chiefly during her tenure as an outstanding member of the National Dance Company, a career that made her one of Guyana’s outstanding Ambassadors of Dance and that saw her take the stage six times at Carifestas around the region.
When I asked her about her expectations of the National School of Dance she appeared to ponder the significance of the question. “I hope that people who embrace this particular art form can develop a sense of independence. Certainly, I believe that creative dancing can contribute to discipline of our young people. Some of the elements require people to go into themselves. The physical manifestations of creative dance, the movements, the steps are what we see. But in order to connect with people we have to go into ourselves. It is that going inside that makes the dancer independent.”
She wishes that more people would dance. “Creative dance equips people with a discipline that can be so powerful that they take that discipline away with them and infuse it into their social, intellectual and professional lives. People do it for different reasons.
We have parents who recognize in the art form a vehicle for both discipline and recreation. Then there are older people who simply pursue a passion that they may have nurtured for much of their lives without being able to express it.”
I told her that I thought that creative dance had waned in popularity and that I believed that there was a time when the National School of Dance was a more prominent pattern on the local cultural tapestry. She agreed without really saying so. “The institutions that support creative dance need money. Building a dance troupe to a certain level of proficiency also requires money. People who really have a passion for dance are required to make changes in their life styles, in their diets and those changes require resources.”
She believes too that the proliferation of popular entertainment – including the advent of television – has created a greater appetite for what she calls “street dance,” a term which, she insists, is not intended to denigrate what she believes is a legitimate art form. “The reduced popularity of the theatrical art forms has not only occurred in dance; we have also seen it manifested in music and drama. Personally, I think of operatic art forms. This does not appear to be a national preference.”
Still, she concedes that the National Dance Company has done a fair job in seeking to reinvent itself, in seeking to shape its creative fare to meet the tastes of contemporary audiences. “Whenever we have our shows we try to present a mix of classical performances and performances that borrow from the contemporary culture. We are not unaware of the need to perform for our audiences.”
We talked some more about raising the profile of creative dance and Linda conceded that other things have changed. “When I was dancing with the National Dance Company we were full-time dancers. We could travel and entertain and spend time refining our talents. All that has changed. We cannot afford to pay dancers and they cannot afford to spend as much time dancing.” She says that social and economic changes have caused people to alter the shapes of their lives. “The dancers,” she says, “ do not have the scope, they do not have the audiences to make what they do commercially worthwhile.”
And while she refuses to be bitter about the lack of audiences, she wishes that the private sector would do more to support this art form. “Private enterprise looks for instant return. If they find that the return is not there they are, in most cases, simply not interested. It is extremely difficult to get the business community to give to us.”
She compares the circumstances of the local dance group with those of the Jamaica Dance Company. “They do not have our constraints. The support that they receive removes the financial distraction. That is why they are as good as they are.”
Still, she refuses to dwell on the challenges facing the National Dance Company or those facing the practice of the art form locally. “The constraints simply challenge us to work harder. “The quality of our work has been recognized and lauded both at home and abroad and while dancers have come and gone, there are still those of us who give in both passion and commitment.”
My meeting with Linda had materialised on the third try. She is currently preoccupied with Guyana’s hosting of Carifesta X in August. Dance, she says, will be a major part of Carifesta X. Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Belize, Turks and Caicos Islands, Suriname Martinique and Dominica have all been invited to send dance groups to Carifesta. The event, she says, will also see representation from the diaspora in North America and the United Kingdom. Dance representation at Carifesta X is also expected from the People’s Republic of China.
The National Dance Company along with some of the other dance companies in Guyana will join forces to produce what she says will be a cultural mix of dance that seeks to reflect the country’s heritage. “What we will be seeking to do is to showcase the different forms of dance that are practiced in Guyana and the evolution of dance in Guyana over the years. One of the things that we want to demonstrate at Carifesta X is the way in which we have shaped the art form to respond to the diverse cultural reality of Guyana. Along with the modern and classical training our dance has also fostered the various indigenous dance forms.”
And after almost an entire lifetime immersed in dance there is no sign that Linda’s appetite for the art form has diminished. Perhaps surprisingly, given her years of training in modern and classical dance, she boasts of her proficiency in masquerade, perhaps to suggest that after all these years she can still muster the energy that this particular genre of dance demands.
And while she declines to see retirement on the horizon she concedes that giving up the responsibilities of Director of the National School of Dance may at some stage have to be considered. “I will never not love dance but there are other things that I want to do with my life.”
