UDS brings Renewal and Continuity in 39th season
SINCE its inception in February 1968, the Philip Sherlock Centre for Creative Arts has fostered a home for potential and the rise of talent and creativity among the students of the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Playing an integral part in one particular sector of the Arts Society, dance, the late Professor the Honourable Rex Nettleford was a guide and mentor to his students and those who looked to him as a father figure, cultural icon and a master of the arts. Thus, it was in this light that ‘Renewal and Continuity’ emerged, as a memoriam, on March 20, 2010.
In an interview with the president of the University Dance Society (UDS), Vanessa Blair, she said that she took into serious consideration Professor Nettleford’s words to “use our own and use or young choreographers”. She expressed that the performances were mainly to allow the dancers total control of expressing themselves without holding back.
With nine performances on the programme, lots of awe and excitement from the audience, the show seemed to be too short. Though all the dances were exceptionally put together, and performed magnificently by the dancers, it was Stages of Love Part 2 and Part 3 by Renee McDonald and Adrian Wanliss that stole the crowd’s attention, sending them into an outburst of applauses. Commended by dancer Samantha Daley, who has been dancing from the tender age of three, both McDonald and Wanliss are “technically strong and clean in their stage performance and stage presence”.
Another dancer, Rhonda Sutherland, said that the show was “hard work paid off”. She continued, “God remained central in all rehearsals and our talent which was given to us by Him was perfectly manifested in tonight’s performances.”
Though the dance society is the university’s own, it was made abundantly clear by the president that it is not restricted only to university students. This was duly noted when one of the star performers, Steven Cornwall of the Edna Manley School of Performing Arts, captured the audience with his grace and intense moves.
Overall, the show was indeed a breathtaking one and did not fail to embrace the title ‘Renewal and Continuity’. The old was rehabilitated and the University Dance Society showed that progression towards a brighter future in all that is in store for them.