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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 3 MARCH 2019
You wake up sweating and realise there’s a painful blue bruise
on your arm.
Leeanna Boyce wants you to know, if you’re in T&T, you
weren’t bitten by a vampire. That was a
soucouyant
!
Boyce, a dancer, UWI student and Theatre Arts teacher
at Moruga Secondary School, has a passion for preserving the
folklore of Trinidad and Tobago.
“We have our own unique characters people should know
about,” she says.
She was taken aback when she discovered her students
“didn’t have the slightest idea” about phantoms and
lagahoos
,
and were more familiar with “American” ghosts and goblins. So
she embarked on a cultural mission that’s taking her all the way
to the Carifesta stage this August, with jumbies in tow.
Working with her students (whom she calls her “minions”)
Boyce put together a scary “haunted house”, so members of the
public could be spooked and educated at the same time.
The idea was first incarnated as the final presentation for her
Festival Arts course at the Department of Creative and Festival
Arts (DCFA).The presentation, staged last November, was a hit.
It was held at the National Cocoa and Chocolate Museum of
Trinidad and Tobago in Moruga, a perfect setting with its old
structures and ghostly artifacts from the early 1900s.
The mood was set with lights and a fog machine. Students
in full costume and makeup hid in the bush and under the
plantation house, depicting characters like the cloven-hoofed
La
Diablesse
, forest protector
Papa Bois
, haggish Gang Gang Sarah
and of course the unbaptised spirit children,
douens
. Her minions
got fully into character and enjoyed bringing a scary thrill to
patrons, while reminding them of local lore.The presentation
received glowing reviews on social media.
ARTIST ON A MISSION
Leeanna has made her life in culture over the last two
decades. Growing up in Ste Madeleine, she attended Best Village
classes in drumming, singing, drama and dance at the nearby
community centre with the Ste Madeleine Folk Performers.
“Is fassness that get me in the centre,” she recalls with a laugh.
Her curiosity, coupled with a natural flair, has led her to
explore all aspects of performance. She learned mas’ design
and wire bending at the feet of late master mas’ man from San
Fernando Roland St George; making mas’ for his band D’Krewe.
From the late fashion designer Dexter Jennings she learned
costume construction and special effects makeup.
She earned her Certificate in Dance at The University of the
West Indies in 2010 and is poised to graduate from the University
with a BA in the discipline next year.With this wealth of training
she inspires her students to find their own wellspring of creativity.
“I give themdolls and tell them to create their own (versions
and interpretations). They come up with some nice ideas,” she
says. “It makes them more expressive.”
In the dance classroom, which students call “the happy
room”, she often supplies craft materials herself and enjoys
helping her students find self-discipline and self-expression
through the arts.
Leeanna feels the legacy of T&T’s culture must be cherished
and should be more fully explored: “There is somuch that people
don’t know about, and so much we can market…. We should
appreciate what is ours – not somebody else’s thing.”
And she is creating a legacy of her own. Leeanna founded
the Artistic Dance Theatre in Princes Town and the Moruga
School for the Performing Arts. For San Fernando Carnival
2019 she is presenting a
Jouvert
band of sexy jab
molassies
named “Rouge Masquerade”. Their presentation is called “Jab
Nation”. It is her ultimate ambition to become this country’s
Culture Minister, and she sees many untapped opportunities
for culture to bloom.
The present Minister of Community Development, Culture
and the Arts, Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, invited Leeanna to mount
her haunted house at Carifesta XIV, fromAugust 16 - 25. She will
construct a maze at the Village at Queen’s Park Savannah, so her
“willing victims” can be surprised around any turn.
“I wasn’t expecting this project to reach so far,” she says.
“My goal is to frighten someone real bad!” she declares with
a wicked smirk. Come Carifesta, she will have her chance.
ART, CULTURE, CARNIVAL
‘Fassness’,
flair and a
deep deep love of culture
B Y G I L L I A N M O O R E
Leeanna feels the legacy
of T&T’s culture must be
cherished and should be
more fully explored: “There
is so much that people don’t
know about, and so much
we can market…. We should
appreciate what is ours – not
somebody else’s thing.”
Dancer, UWI Dance student and Theatre Arts
teacher Leeanna Boyce.
PHOTO: GILLIAN MOORE
