For years, Jonathan Hamer has operated behind the scenes as co-founder of the once popular Classique Dance Company and now director of Kreative Arts, but the work he does with his students pours out in every move they make; he now hones in others what began when he first added music to his steps.
Born Carlyle Joelyn Jonathan Hamer, the dancer and actor grew up in North Ruimveldt. Jonathan’s life in the music arena began while he was still a kindergartener and sang in his church’s choir. He even performed as a soloist at the St George’s Cathedral, but singing was not the art form he wanted to pursue. He was always fascinated by one of the dance teachers of his church, Wayne Daniels. He spent a lot of his time also watching Soul Train and Usher was among his inspirations. Asked whether he can dance like Usher, he chuckled saying not anymore, but there was a time when he could.
By the time Jonathan was attending Tucville Primary he was sharing his opinions on dance combinations and movements that his classmates should try in preparation for Mashramani competitions. He became their go-to person for tips. All of the dances that went up on behalf of his school were done by girls, so he never tried to participate. Two of the other reasons he held back from becoming a dancer were because male dancers were stereotyped as gay, and his father had said from early that dancing came with no insurance or guarantee and there was no sort of permanent career in dance. His father changed his mind, though only partially, when Jonathan performed at his first Carifesta.
At secondary school, he became more intrigued with dance and while teacher Wayne Daniels rehearsed his dance pieces, Jonathan would be on the sidelines watching and mimicking his every move. Though he began his journey in dance through imitation, the dancer has always been himself and never a crowd follower. This sort of attitude made him popular and whenever he is in his corner doing him, whatever he did, he was certain to attract a crowd.
After school he continued in dance and pirated the choreographies from videos like Sisqo’s “Thong Song”, giving numerous performances at different school concerts around Georgetown. This led to many requests for Jonathan to teach dance and he started doing so at Alleyne’s High School. This opened doors for him to teach dance and physical education at the Business School and in this new undertaking he was contacted by the Nadira and Indranie Shah Dance Troupe to choreograph a piece for Nrityageet. At this particular time, choreographer Clive Prowell was also involved in the show and together they decided that they should form their own group providing they had the necessary interested persons; this was how Classique Dance Company came into being.
However, as time progressed not many of Jonathan’s concepts for Classique were welcomed. He was hoping that the group would expand to learning and performing drama and after some years of their ideas not quite meshing, Jonathan decided it was best to leave Classique. “As co-director you can’t really push your own concept without the permission of the director. Very few people know that I’m a part of Classique’s foundation,” he said. “But Classique had many positives. One of them being, I was able to encounter Teacher Vivienne Daniels of the National Dance Company. As a result of working with her when they needed male performers and I was selected to go to my first Carifesta in 2003 in Suriname. Later on, I was selected again to go Carifesta and this was in 2006 in Trinidad, then Carifesta in Guyana in 2008, and this year at Carifesta where I worked along with the National Drama Company.
“…In 2013, we started working along with Deaf Theatre Guyana where we would teach the deaf children at Harold B Davis School how to dance and we actually took the troupe to Carifesta; this was well received. At that time people were working on getting people with disability out there and making the public aware that they could still do stuff despite their disabilities. We worked along with Sabine McIntosh [Managing Director of Deaf Association]. The first time the students of the special school performed for the Minister of Health, she was taken back because here were children with disability doing so much when there is very little any person would expect. When she saw that they could stick to rhythm and put movement to words without hearing anything and bring feeling and joy, she was amazed. To see them execute this so well was very fulfilling for me.”
Dance romance
Today Jonathan still works with deaf children at the Harold B Davis Special School and does this together with his wife, dancer and actor Esther Hamer; they teach four classes. The two met on the set of Crowns, Pearls and Dancing Girls, which was a musical by Derek Moore for Miss World Guyana. At the time Jonathan was co-directing at Classique and Esther was with City dancers. They were dance partners performing interpretive and Latin dances for the Dance Mania Competition and won the Latin category. This was the beginning of their romance that saw them later tying the knot. They now have four children, all of whom are into dance and/or drama, including their smallest child who is four years old. Currently Esther and two of their children are actors on the Merundoi Radio Serial Drama.
“It is my dream to open a registered performing arts school in Guyana within the next decade…,” Jonathan said. “I would want to have the different art forms under one roof. This school will offer music, dance, drama and also academics. Persons can choose whether they want to major in all three, both practical and theory or just focus on one. Children can start as young as age five unless they are a bit [versed] in dance they can enroll at a younger age.
“Initially, this was what Clive and I had planned, that Classique would have become a school like that but then the director started switching it up and decided he wanted to keep it to dance. That’s why I had to leave and now have Kreative Arts.
“Kreative Arts caters for music and drama. If we can bring all the different genres of dance together and the choreographers, we can harness the best students out of each school and put on a production. We’ll get more sponsors and people will realize that dance is a force to be invested in and respect us more. In each group we have the super talented and the weak and I don’t think no one group could really go to anybody and really represent and hold an audience or a corporate sponsor for too long. If we form like a dance association, apart from you having your own group, with these talented people that would help the dream come true.
“You have to have somebody who love the arts to invest properly in the arts. Most of these groups abroad, they survive through donations from corporate people. I also reached out to Ansa McAl but they told me that the only way they could invest in something like I want is if I could show that they would get a quick return but it can’t happen like that. It has to be on a long-term basis to see the rewards. The deal that I wanted with them is that we come up with most of their advertisements and performances of their events for free once you’re funding the school.”
Dancing has over the years has polished a discipline in him. When Jonathan first began dancing, he did so to gospel songs at his church. After decades of dancing he can smoothly dance Afro, Caribbean, Latin, Interpretive, Ethnic, HipHop, Contemporary, Pop and Jazz, and teaches them all. While he is certainly a pro at these dances, the genre that was the most challenging for him to learn was Bollywood.
With knowledge of so many dance genres, he hopes to create a national dance mentioning that while Guyanese know different genres of dance, none of the dances actually belong to Guyana. The man noted that Guyanese are holding on to masquerade as their national dance since it is considered the oldest kind of dance in Guyana.
Jonathan further said given Guyana’s diverseness, representatives from the various ethnicities should come together and try to come up with our own national wear. Too many times, he said, when someone represents Guyana regionally or internationally, they wear either and Indian or African wear.
Self-taught
Though Jonathan is a self-taught dancer and learned many of his moves from watching YouTube tutorials and reading books, there are persons on the local scene who influenced him including Carey Bookie, Director of Crystallite Dance Group; Vivienne Daniels, Director of National Dance Company; Royston Glasgow, Let’s Dance; Marlon Nurse, Ballroom Dance Instructor of the Georgetown School of Ballroom and Latin; Kenrick Cheeks and Oral Welshman who taught Pop-Jazz.
Kreative Arts hosted ‘Greens and Golds 3 – Watch We Now’ at Theatre Guild last Saturday night. Greens and Golds started three years ago but the first theatrical production but on by the Kreative Arts was ‘Prelude to the Arrival’ in 2010. Two years later, it was the gospel show, ‘Who Do You Believe In’. In Greens and Gold, Greens is used to describe children while Gold represents the adults. The concept of the whole show is the process of life and preparing for the performing arts life and following one’s dreams.
Aside from having his hands full with all that Kreative Arts does, along with being a husband and father, Jonathan is an associate member at the National Drama Company. He is also the technical guy or ‘Flyman 1’ at the National Cultural Centre taking care of props and costumes at various events, which he has been doing for the last 15 years.
At the moment, he is working on one the Gaga Technique, a skill which takes a walk, a shake, the blinking of the eye or a tremble, just about any sort of movement that with practice becomes a smooth dance if perfected. He is working primarily with the Harold B Davis students with the Gaga Technique.
To stay a fit dancer, Jonathan does class exercises, which help with a dancer’s extensions, points, balance, strength and flexibility. To keep a lean and flexible body it is also necessary for dancers to follow a diet of lots of greens and small portions of meat. While Jonathan does not do this all year round, he does keep a strict diet in the run-up to performances.
In his free time, Jonathan enjoys playing tennis, fishing, and watching television with his family; he likes “Family Feud” and other game shows.
This dancing Leo loves the colour blue. His favourite dishes are cook-up and pepperpot which he loves having with rice and can eat all year round.
Regarding his academics, Jonathan attended, St Nicholas Nursery, Tucville Primary, Brickdam Secondary and North Georgetown Secondary. Once an avid Science lover who received a double award for the subject and took a transfer to North Georgetown because he fell in love with the Science labs there, Jonathan had hoped to work at Banks DIH someday in the mixing and making of beverages, but this dream changed when dance became his passion.
Jonathan can be followed on Facebook and Instagram at Kreative Arts.
