By Gwyneth Cumberbatch
I have by now lost count of the times I have absorbed myself in Frances-Anne Solomon's 1990 video 'I Is A Long-Memoried Woman'.
At first I thought I was drawn simply to the two dominant faces of the long memoried woman. Jamaica's talented Leonie Forbes, an old voice echoing with weary and wise authority, dragged from my heart the deeply buried pain of some childhood terror. The younger face is Adjoa Andoh, Black British. Though her words trip out lightly, I saw in her stubbornness and tenacity of will that I value in many women and myself.
At other times it seemed to be the dance that pulled me in. The long-linked, languid movement of Eusebia as she dips and sways to Greta Mendez's choreographic interpretation of the long memoried woman's moods and actions: she's stepping out as a Trinidadian soucoyant; she comes upon the African goddess Yimanji, sprawled on the river bank; she requires an omen of Nanny, the Jamaican warrior queen; she takes up the flame of revolution alongside Toussaint L'Ouverture, the rebellious slave leader from Haiti. He beat the trained armies of Napoleon. Even today we care so little about him.
I know that each time I view the video, there is a corner of my mind that hangs on to the music, to the original compositions by Dominique LeGendre, with the proud singing of Djanet Sears. I know now that each time Grace Nichols explains her craft matter-of-factly, almost mundane in her delivery style, that it is around her poetry that all the pieces fit. Frances-Anne Solomon's clever direction weaves the deceptively simple patterns into a complex beauty to which I return with every chance I get.
The Long-Memoried Woman" (as the video is now affectionately called by a growing band of insiders who have fallen in love with it) has been screened to enthusiastic audiences in London, Toronto and New York. In January 1991, it won the gold award for best television performing arts presentation at the New York Film and Video Festival.
For me ?The Long Memoried Woman" is more than a performing arts presentation. It is the first time that I have seen such a powerful fabric of so many facets of African cultural memory. It is for me, some parts of my own tale. As far as I know, there are no stories written by my ancestors who have travelled the Middle Passage and survived, enslaved in this region. I was raised on a history told by men who brought and sold my people, who silenced their voices but could neither steal nor replace the knowledge and emotions that lie in the souls of Black folk.
I am overjoyed that this highly skilled group of Black women, who live today in both the Old World and in the New, came together to reclaim some of their own history through the long memoried woman. I feel that my own life has been enriched through the video. I sincerely hope that the video will help to enhance further the cultural life of this region. Thank you Ingrid Lewis and Frances-Anne Solomon.
