BERYL MCBURNIE
(1913-2000)
THE BELLE OF THE
DANCE
By Michael Anthony
People of the
Century
Part One
Express
Section 2
April 12, 2000
Pages 20 & 21
The
great figure of Trinidad folk dancing is Beryl McBurnie, and in
the arts, few have lit up our 20th century in quite the same way as
she did.
She
has brought delight through the artistry and enchantment of her productions,
and she has influenced more than a generation of young people, some of whom
fell in love with folk dancing because of Beryl's own style and elegance, and
because of the luster she brought to it.
Many
of the big names in folk dancing, especially those who brightened the era of
the Little Carib theatre, did so through the tutelage and inspiration of Beryl
McBurnie, and together they transformed this theatre into a temple of vivacious
dance.
Beryl
McBurnie, who was born on November 2, 1913, turned to the dancing as a child of
eight. But there was not much to
attract and encourage her. In fact,
there were no patterns to follow, no standards to live up to.
Trinidad
folk dancing was almost like a clean slate.
It was because of Beryl's energy and resourcefulness that so much has
been accomplished.
She
did not just dance. She sought and
obtained the material to give her dances an authentic foundation.
Many
of the melodies and folk dances that would have been lost to us were rescued by
her and brought out into the open.
A
particular case is the parang. There
were places where parang music had endured over a great span of time - such as
Caura and Paramin - but people in general knew little of it.
It
was Beryl, principally, who brought out this gem and put it onto the stage.
Although
Beryl was only a child when she began dancing, she apparently seemed to know
exactly what she was doing and where she was going - or rather, where she
wanted to go.
For
example, it took a lot out of her to perform the Scottish reels, jigs, and
other British folk dances that the teacher at her school, Tranquillity Girls',
placed before them all the time.
Those
dances might have been delightful, but to her mind they were just a little
irrelevant.
For
apart from their beauty of movement, they gave expression of a personality and
experience that were not her own.
What
she hankered after was expressing, in dance, the way of life and aspects of the
history of her own environment.
And
perhaps it was a good thing that there were no patterns to follow or standards
to live up to.
For
with the slate virtually clean, Beryl McBurnie was ready to establish her own
patterns and set her own high standards.
In
fact, as she grew into adolescence, Beryl became even more conscious of the
heritage that was hers, and was to interpret them in dance.
In
her mind, the important thing was not dancing for the sake of dancing, as beautiful
as that might be.
The
dancing she loved and aspired to do was the dancing which was expressive of the
emotions of the folk, and which in some cases gave an insight into the history
and the way of life of the ordinary people.
But,
in a manner of speaking, Beryl had to swim against the tide.
The
fact that her teacher at Tranquillity Girls' School presented British dances
was nothing new or unique. Nor did it
suggest the teacher might have been British.
The
admiration for things British, or simply foreign, especially European - in
other words, the colonial mentality - was as prevalent in Trinidad as it ever
was.
With the result that few were the teachers who would
dare present anything "local" to children, even if they wanted
to. Parents would not have taken to
that easily.
For in people's minds, anything local was below
standard, and regarded, in some cases, as uncivilised.
Also, in this period, anything that smacked of
Africa was regarded as belonging to the jungle.
The battle that Beryl fought to gain acceptance of
the Trinidad folk dance was a long and hard one, and the wide success she
eventually enjoyed, thereby helping to change attitudes, must stand among the
trophies of her life.
An example of her determination comes from one of
her early presentations, Streetcry, in which was featured many of the
local fruits and delicacies, and was handled rather like the old English market
custom of crying out the wares in the street.
Only that it was her opportunity to cry out the
names of the fruit that we had all around us - fruits like sapodilla, Caimite,
mango, pommerac, which everybody ate, but which were hardly cried out from the
stage before.
Apart from presenting a most entertaining show,
Beryl's subtle streetcry was that she was going to bring Trinidad folk life and
folk customs to the front of the stage, come hell or high waters.
Following those early years, spent under the
tutelage of Mary Fraser, her teacher at Tranquillity Girls' School, Beryl set
out to make dancing her career.
What she had done in dance so far was enough to
delight people close to her, like Audrey Jeffers, and to give them the feeling
that a star was born. So they gave her
every encouragement.
Audrey Jeffers, 15 years her senior, had always been
interested in the career of this young girl, and in the early 1920s when Audrey
was getting the Coterie of Social Workers established, Beryl had been a regular
performer at the numerous fundraising concerts held at the Jeffers' home.
It is believed that these concerts tapped Beryl's
resourcefulness to the fullest, since there was always the need to find new
ideas in order to present new and entertaining performances.
Therefore the concerts contributed towards making
her the eminent researcher and the artist of ideas that she became.
Part Two continues next
Wednesday
BERYL CHANGED THE
STEPS OF FOLK DANCE
By Michael Anthony
People of the
Century
Part II
Express
Section 2
April 18, 2000
Page 28
Although
in those early years her activities horrified the great number of people who
looked with scorn on local folk culture, she did happen to win the admiration
of most of the young radicals of the day - the people who cried aloud for
change, and who wanted to see local art forms focused upon and given a place in
the sun.
One
of these young people was Carlton Comma, who had just gone to England on a
scholarship. Comma wrote commending
Beryl McBurnie for her work, and entreating her to put things down in writing
as she went about her research. Then
was it that she sought and received help from Andrew Carr, another aspiring
folklorist, who assisted her in her studies of the folk-dances of Trinidad,
thus enriching her repertoire.
She
had already made the bele famous and she studied other African dances and other
African musical rhythms - especially the drumming - as well as the relationship
of musical rhythms to form and movement.
Beryl
danced for many years with a group known as "The Brisbanes", and it
was at this time she became known for her own special talent in interpreting
musical and rhythmic expression in folk dance.
She was also very conscious of physical fitness for dancers, and at this
time she set out to squash the widely held opinion that folk dance needed no
special discipline, or training, or any degree of physical fitness.
At
25, in 1938, Beryl studied briefly at Columbia University in New York, and on
her return in 1940 went to New York again, and this was the period when she
danced as La Belle Rosette.
In
1945 she once again returned to the local scene and after a short and active
period she left for the Sorbonne in Paris, then spent a period in England. She followed this up by doing research into
folk forms in Cayenne, Brazil and Suriname.
It was in Suriname, in 1947, that she saw a simple and charming
schoolroom, which gave her the idea of a theatre house she had had in
mind. When she came back home she
erected a building after that style and called it "The Little Carib".
The
opening of "The Little Carib" in 1948 was one of the great occasions
in Trinidad theatre history. The great
American baritone singer, Paul Robeson, was here for the occasion.
Beryl
McBurnie and her Little Carib dancers brought in the golden years of the
Trinidad folk dance. Among those who
shone with Beryl during the period were: Molly Ahye, Percy Borde, Merlina
Scott, Gloria Corbie, Pearl Nunez, Bruce Procope and Aubrey Adams.
However,
the tide of public support never rose high enough, and there never seemed to be
public acclaim commensurate with the extraordinary achievement of Beryl and her
dancers.
As
the years passed Beryl's name became synonymous with folk dancing. She visited England as guest of the British
Council in 1950, and in the same year she took a group of dancers on a tour of
Puerto Rico, Canada, England, and Jamaica, thereby realising a dream of taking
the Trinidad folk dance out into the wider world. She produced cultural shows for two royal tours: one in 1960 and
the other in 1966.
Earlier,
in 1958, Beryl McBurnie was honoured with the Order of the British Empire
(OBE), and in 1969 she was awarded the Humming Bird Gold Medal. But the crowning glory was when she received
this country's highest award, the Trinity Cross, in 1989.
Beryl
died on March 30, 2000 after a long day's work, and during this labour she
changed the entire picture of Trinidad folk dancing.
The
slate is no longer blank. There are
patterns to follow; there are standards to aim at.
No tribute
is really adequate to pay to La Belle Rosette, our daughter of dance in the 20th
century.