The emergence of a modeling industry in Jamaica that valorizes idiosyncratic style has opened up a space in which black images of beauty take center stage. Caribbean Fashion Week is the major platform for displaying internationally acclaimed Jamaican models. Showcasing a high percentage of decidedly black male and female models wearing spectacular designer clothes, Caribbean Fashion Week enables multiple readings of the body as cultural text. The permissive modeling aesthetic engenders capricious images of beauty that contest the very conception of the 'model' as a mold into which a singular figure of beauty is impressed.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
127 p, Contents: Two people lived in me / C.L.R. James -- As time goes by / Samuel Selvon -- Sandra Street / Michael Anthony -- Bitter choice / Clifford Sealy -- Preacher / George Lamming -- Cricket / Edward Brathwaite -- Reckoning / Jan Carew -- Tacama / Edgar Mittelholzer -- Hurricane / John Hearne -- Visitor / H. Orlando Patterson -- New boy / V.S. Reid -- Death / Mervyn Morris -- House in another country / Neville Dawes.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
238 p, A reaffirmation of the validity of that persistent quest by the Jamaican and Caribbean people for place and purpose in a globalised world of continuous change. In post-colonial societies like Jamaica, the issue of cultural identity is as important as political independence and economic self-sufficiency. Rex Nettleford goes further by declaring that cultural identity is as fundamental a reality as food, shelter, clothing and job opportunities and is not a mere abstract preoccupation. For this reason, cultural ‘action’ is central to effective social change. Caribbean Cultural Identity analyses and illustrates the dynamics of cultural evolution in the Caribbean. Nettleford focuses on the problems of identity, particularly as it relates to cultural pluralism and Eurocentricity and describes in detail the role that the performing arts have played in shaping the general development of Jamaica as well as the Caribbean in general.
Long before reggae became a global superstar in the 1970s and since then the iconic expression of Jamaican culture, it was Jamaica's performing arts groups that were the standard bearers of the nation's image, chief among them the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) and the Jamaica Folk Singers which were established in 1962 and 1967 respectively. New works have similarly been introduced into the repertoire, many choreographed by the young members. The NDTC's organic relationship with the School of Dance and the entire cultural umbrella of the Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts and the Little Theatre Movement ensures that there's a continuous and dynamic exchange of ideas, teaching and talent. A number of the senior dancers and choreographers are in fact lecturers at the School of Dance.
What is Eiery Furnace Films? A film production company established by a group of Caribbean immigrants, predominantly Jamaicans, to produce community based films about the real Caribbean immigrant experience in this country. Their films portray the peoples' stories in an unrelenting honest and straight forward manner. Like the musical works of their courageous predecessor, Bob Marley, there is no "sugar coating" to the message of why people are struggling, as their lives are vividly portrayed on film. There is one industry always flourishing in the "ghetto" - that is the drug trade. Who profits from the drug trade? the big "drug lords," who live nowhere near the ghetto. If the only available jobs are those involved in the drug trade, that is what some people will go towards out of necessity. The majority of people don't get involved in all of that. They work very hard, many with two and three jobs, to support their children and send money home as well. Kevin Porter is a producer and writer with tremendous talents whose creative efforts are responsible for the publishing of "Inspirations of the God Within" (A Book of Classical Poems), and the production of "Rasta-Life and The Truth," an award winning film on the contributions and benefits of the Rastafarians.
