PARADISE AND PLANTATION

Aaron Kamugisha writes, “Paradise and Plantation is an ingenious and thoughtful contribution to Caribbean scholarship . . .”  Read his full review in ProudFlesh: A New Journal of African Culture, Politics and Consciousness Here.

SHOW ME YOUR MOTION

BAHAMA JOURNAL JANUARY 14, 2006

Strachan Shows Bahamian “Motion” In Ring Play Documentary

Written by Erica Wells

Ring play to most people is the preoccupation of school children waiting for the recess bell, but to poet, playwright and scholar, Dr. Ian Strachan, it’s the subject of his first documentary that tells a story about what it means to be Bahamian.

In ‘Show Me Your Motion,’ a witty play on words taken from the classic ring play song ‘Brown Girl In The Ring,’ Strachan uses the seemingly “benign” children’s activity to explore issues of obscenity, decency, gender roles, femininity, masculinity and how ring play has influenced popular art.

“I have a reputation as someone who is political in his work and controversial, so I wanted to make a documentary but I wanted to choose a subject that would seem benign, something that whatever people’s politics, they would receive it and not let what they think of me and my work get in the way, something that the whole country could possibly appreciate and that wouldn’t be a threat to the establishment,” Strachan told Arts and Entertainment in an interview at his office at the College of the Bahamas’ School of English Studies.

“I wanted to tell a story about what it means to be Bahamian. Most of [my work] is about that and as an academic that question preoccupies me.”

And with a subject like ring play, Strachan attempts to examine that big question by looking at “this little thing.”

“I thought [the documentary] could celebrate [ring play], could preserve it and study it, so that we might better understand ourselves. It’s just always been one of those things that fascinated me,” says Strachan.

The 75-minute documentary, which Strachan says is about 85 to 90 percent finished, is divided into sections centred on themes that deal with loaded issues like sexuality, gender and cultural identity.

Strachan uses a ring play song that reflects a particular topic – for example, ‘Some Like It Hot’ is used for the segment on sexuality – and then intersperses interviews with artists, educators, scholars and children, with footage taken from about 10 local and regional schools, featuring primary school to college level students, from both public and private schools.

He will screen excerpts from ‘Show Me Your Motion’ and discuss the process involved in producing the work next Thursday, January 19 at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, 6.30pm.

During the two-year plus process of putting the documentary together, Strachan, who is in his 30s, had the chance to observe a lot of differences between the ring play of his generation and the current generation’s.

“We’ve gone through a lot of change and flux. Ring play is this powerful phenomena that has a rarefied place in our consciousness,” says Strachan.

He says that what he expected to find, and naively so, were that the games that were sung when he was younger were still being sung in the same way, but that was not the case.

“Some of the old ones still exist, some are not remembered and new ones have emerged,” he says.

“Ring play reflects the conditions and the way of life of a people. Children sing about what they know. We were singing, ‘ripe tomato, green peas, how you sell ‘em lick doong bam,’ and ‘blue hill water dry’ those songs reflected our condition, when we sang a song like, ‘my mother dead and buried, my father forsaken me, I have no one to love me so they throw me in the deep blue sea’.”

Strachan says that singing about experiences hasn’t changed, but the experiences of children of today have.

“Now they are still singing about their experience, but it’s interesting how that experience reflects the forces of globalisation, Americanisation and the media. The increased exposure that children have to sex, not that sex wasn’t always there, it’s just now more naked,” he says.

“Everybody always knew what ‘sausage in there’ was about, but now words have been added to the song that lack metaphor.”

Another example of the influence of the world outside of The Bahamas on ring play can be seen in the ring play song ‘Welcome to McDonald’s’, which goes through the menu of the popular fast food chain.

And some of the tunes, he says, are obviously transposed from the US, like “mama mama can’t you see, daddy took away my MTV now I’m watching Barney,” and songs about US pop icons like Michael Jackson and Tina Turner.

What Strachan did notice though, as he collected footage from the Caribbean, was that ring play in places like St. Lucia and Barbados were less influenced by the American way of life, compared to what he observed in New Providence and the Family Islands.

When it comes to the actual nature of the dance of ring play, that too shows a strong element of influence from abroad, this time from rap and reggae music videos, he says.

Strachan says that the persons interviewed for the documentary, who range in age from 60s to early teens, speak of an element of the forbidden for children, performing ring play which often involves a lot of “whinning.”

“Even the older interviewees reserved that type of stuff for the school yard, when their parents were not around. The type of dancing that you find [today] is expanded to include more pronounced sexually suggestive movement, which I’m pretty sure was not there before, not to say it did not exist before in some cultural context,” says Strachan.

Although ring play may have a sexual element, Strachan says that the innocence is still very visible and it should not be assumed that it is “knowingly sexual.”

However, Strachan admits that he was surprised by what he saw at the schools, some of which have banned ring play on campus.

What also surprised Strachan, who has written, directed and produced plays, like the politically controversial “Black Crab’s Tragedy” and the painfully honest look at the Haitian condition in The Bahamas through “Diary of Souls,” was what goes in to putting a story together using a different medium. Strachan is also the author of “Paradise and Plantation: Tourism and Anglophone Caribbean Culture” and the novel “God’s Angry Babies.”

“It was definitely a learning experience. Interviewing people in the winter with no muffler on the microphone, shooting someone with back light and everything coming out black,” says Strachan, who had the challenge of going through about 40 to 50 hours of footage and editing it down to 75 minutes.

Strachan did most of the filming using hand held cameras and Matthew Kelly the editing, and guesses that he spent countless hours since late 2003 bringing his idea to fruition.

Making a documentary was a natural choice for Strachan, given that his work often centres on the Bahamian human condition, and after his Track Road Theatre, now in its tenth year, received a grant to purchase film equipment.

“A documentary seemed like a good way to ease into film and ring play was one of the topics that I was interested in doing,” he recalls.

Once the documentary is completed, Strachan plans to launch an intense promotion campaign before the release of ‘Show Me Your Motion’ in the fall of 2006.

After its release, Strachan plans on showing the documentary locally, including to local students, and wants to enter ‘Show Me Your Motion’ in film festivals in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom, before its release on DVD.

But despite the challenges that come with taking on something new, Strachan feels that the end result will be “very satisfying.”

“I wanted to look at certain things that relate to ring play, certain issues – obscenity, gender roles, decency, is it immoral, is it bad, should it be prohibited, the construction of femininity, what was proper female behaviour as it relates to ring play. I wanted to look at masculinity, do boys play are they allowed, how ring play changes over time, what people remember, what people forget, how ring play has inspired or influenced popular art or the creative work, and then our cultural identity as it relates to ring play,” he says.

After a bit of a break Strachan says that he wants to make another movie.

His Track Road Theatre, a non-profit, community-based theatre company, is currently working on a screenplay for a feature length film, ‘Love Vine.’

Even as Strachan puts the finishing touches on ‘Show Me Your Motion,’ he continues to juggle his full-time job as chair of the School of English Studies at COB, and his work with Track Road Theatre, which has just held auditions for its new play about the straw market fire of 2001 and is in the process of publishing three books – the play ‘Diary of Souls,’ Strachan’s book of poetry, ‘Silk Cotton Soul’ and a drama book for children, which comes out of the group’s annual summer drama camp.

Strachan says that what he is most looking forward to once ‘Show Me Your Motion’ is completed is showing the documentary to the children who participated in the process.

Says Strachan: “It’s a story about us, an opportunity to see ourselves on the big screen, to celebrate something that is everyday.”

DIARY OF SOULS

ABACO JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 1999

The Track Road Theatre delivered an emotionally powerful account of Ian Strachan’s play Diary of Souls at Central Abaco Primary School on 24th July. The play is based on an incident on Independence Day 1990 when a Haitian sloop being towed by the Defence Force vessel Yellow Elder capsized and 39 Haitians were drowned. The dead were buried in a common grave on Bitter Guana Cay, Exuma. None of the 69 Haitian survivors testified at the coroner’s inquest that followed.

The play switched frequently between the beach on Bitter Guana Cay where three Haitians are stranded as undead between unfeeling life and death, and a psychiatrist’s office where a Bahamas Defence Force marine is being treated for psychological trauma following the distressing events. The action led forward inexorably to mutual spiritual forgiveness.

In the process, however, the plight of Haitians as victims of their country’s history is delineated, along with the general Bahamian attitude towards Haitians that unwittingly leads to insult and tragedy. Author Strachan lets his characters investigate the heart of the matter, the source of perpetual Haitian distress. Did it extend back to the uprising that led to independence when so many white people were killed gratuitously? Was it the series of despots following Toussaint l’Ouverture that impoverished the beautiful country? Was it the brutality of Papa Doc Duvalier and his tons tons macout that cowed the spirit of a nation? Why do Bahamians shun and despise Haitians, treating them like dirt? These and many more questions arose during the play.

The three stranded Haitian souls – Ti Twàn (Arthur Maycock), Pòl (Ian Strachan) and Silvi (Nickeva Eve) – represent youth, brooding maturity and womanhood. All three were excellent but it Silvi who had the most cathartic scene as she reveals her previous incarnations, never living beyond childhood or ever giving birth. Those were real tears she shed.

The role of Ishmael, the BDF marine, was played by Deon Simms with stunning conviction. When the nightmares came upon him you felt like calling for medical help. His cynicism and counterpoint vulnerability perhaps portray the ambivalence towards Haitians that most Bahamians feel. Clarice Bridgewater as the psychiatrist d the one role that did not demand a wide range of emotions, but she segued easily from psychiatrist to coroner.

Perhaps the most telling scene of the drama was when the Haitians play-acted a Bahamian husband and wife dealing with their Haitian gardener. It should have made all Bahamians uncomfortable, as it was designed to do.