Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
Dancer Shelley-Ann Maxwell. - Andrew Smith/Photography Editor
TWO YOUNG performers are getting ready to put on their dancing shoes and perform for their supper, or rather, their tuition.
Shelley-Ann Maxwell and Oneil Pryce join a growing line of performers who attempt to raise funds to go to school by using their talent and that of those they have worked with.
Their attempt comes in the re-incarnation of the show I'll Send You a Postcard, first staged in 2002. Its goal at inception was the same as when it again takes to the stage of the Little Theatre on Sunday evening for two performances.
In 2002, Neila Ebanks did just that, as she sent herself to school in England to pursue an M.A. in Physical Theatre at the University of Surrey.
INSTITUTE CHANGE
Scholarship opportunities for Jamaican artistes who want to pursue their education (especially postgraduate work), remain for many an elusive dream.
I'll Send You A Postcard hopes to change that to some degree. With a vision to institute change in dance in Jamaica, Ebanks has trademarked the name and intends to turn it into a grant-funding institution, aimed particularly at those wishing to pursue postgraduate study in dance.
Ebanks explains that although postgraduate work tends to be more focused, it also tends to expand the way one thinks about things.
She argues that the value of having practitioners who have engaged in postgraduate work is in having more persons willing to dance outside of the box as a part of the landscape.
Interestingly, both Pryce and Maxwell look toward the impact that their study will have on their work as choreographers. Both are dancers and choreographers with the National Dance Theatre Company, teach at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA) and have produced some interesting and engaging work.
Their intention is to pursue a Masters in Choreography at the Laban Centre in London. Pryce is a graduate of the EMCVPA (where he currently teaches part-time), and SUNY Brockport in New York.
Maxwell had started pursing a degree in actuarial science at the University of the West Indies (UWI) then realised that she would rather pursue her passion and abandoned the programme to pursue dance in Cuba at the Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA). She has also completed a Bachelors in Information Systems at Munroe College.
Maxwell admits that she is looking forward to looking back and seeing how the master's degree will affect her style and process, while Pryce hopes that it will help him define his voice, or rather, infuse a method to how he approaches his movement.
"When it comes to choreography, I can tell all the stories I want to tell," Pryce says.
Dance choreography allows him to defy expectations, and he explains that choreography allows him to do things he is physically unable to as he uses the dancers' bodies as the canvas on which to paint his stories.
VARIED PROCESS
Most of these tales have been abstract and Pryce admits that he prefers that form.
"His (Pryce's) choreography is like a complex Math equation," Maxwell suggests. The two often engage in conversation between themselves, with the discussion propelled by the questions thrown in.
Maxwell explains that her process varies. "Sometimes it starts with me loving a piece of music," she says, "and that music speaks to me with images in my head."
She says, however, that sometimes the "melting pot" takes up to two years to come together as she attempts to stir in with the right consistency the dancers, the music and the movement.
"It's my heartbeat," she says of dance. "It makes the blood in my body pump."
However, both point out that dancing is not merely about jumping about. They speak of the hard work that goes into putting a dance together and admit that some days it grows quite frustrating.
Pryce admits to having a love-hate relationship with his choreography and life itself.
"I always end up hating my choreography in the end," he says. "I'm still waiting for the piece that I'm gonna always be dreaming about."
With some reluctance, and prodding from Maxwell, he admits to liking the piece Stained Soul and being quite enamoured of his current work for the NDTC season, Barre Talk. "I'm in love with the dance, but I'm miserable because it's not crisp," he says. He notes, however, that his growing to love the dance is related to his growing as a choreographer.
Maxwell says she has been choreographing since childhood when she would co-opt her brother and cousins to participate, but officially began at age 15.
As she speaks it becomes evident that not only does she want to create dance that means something to her; she also loves to engage in work which means something to the audience.
She calls attention to Garvey Lives, which came as a result of her stay in New York.
Both Maxwell and Pryce will be performing on Sunday and their choreography will also be a part of the show which includes L'Acadco, The Company, University Players, University Dance Society and Aisha Davis.
