By Tony Hall
I Is A Long-Memoried Woman, directed by Frances-Anne Solomon, is a video on the poems of Grace Nichols. Both Grace Nichols and Frances-Anne are CARIBBEAN immigrants living in Britain (Frances-Anne is from Trinidad and Tobago and Ms. Nichols is from Guyana). But even though the poetry upon which this video is based makes connections from the Caribbean back to Africa, accounting for the painful survival of the African woman through an exploration of the African self, myths and symbols, the style and theatricality of the video have here is an urban tightness and economy, a new world (neo) African sensibility and energy driven by an aggressive feminist consciousness.
From 'The Beginning', the first section of the video, the very beginning, the unsuspecting child of the middle passage is born into a new oppressive world. A pregnant womb of pink cloth traps the African woman in labour, in despair; the journey from Africa to the Caribbean is made. With this bold personal image a celebration of endurance, the endurance of African Women, the African race, begins.
The Long-Memoried Woman has travelled far, from Africa to the Caribbean, to Europe. She moves. She uses body language. A sure voice. She never stops. The language of this video is not just that of the deft videography of Ms. Solomon and the poetic sorcery of Ms. Nichols, but also the vibrancy of Greta Mendez's choreography and the subtlety of Dominique Le Gendre's music. The roles of dance, movement, and music in our survival, in our search for identity are not always fully understood. Yet we dance. She danced. She survived. We survived. The personal, simple language of the poetry lends itself easily to movement, to song, to an electronic dance theatre; shadow and colour rigging tightly form to content. Narrators ? the first young and the second the mature woman ? storytellers/dancers animate the vitality of the Diaspora out of the abuses and excesses of slavery and a fragmented history.
The poetry calls up the spirit of the Maroon Warrior Queen of the eighteenth century, Nanny...
...it is said, never died she
merely moves to another point of battle
where
she can be most useful.
One thing that is important to look at here is how this work addresses the situation of Black people in contemporary Britain. The themes of identity and history are treated very squarely in Grace Nichols' poetry.
Scattered beads
I am forever gathering my life together
Like scattered beads
The latest migration to Europe may prove finally to be the most painful in our journey, the final cut. We need a deeper memory. From Britain, it is difficult enough to re-connect to the Caribbean, let alone all the way to Africa. We can't see our way. We need the Long-Memoried Woman. She is our medium. Nanny has turned up again.
It is important to note how the style and presentation of the video deal with this issue. The context out of which this work is coming may not be readily understood in Europe (or even in the modern Caribbean for that matter). So the shots of the poet reading, commenting etc. which interact with the incessant pulse of the drama and choreography, the old and new documentary and archival footage and the tightly shot expressive faces and bodies of the narrators/ storytellers (Leonie Forbes and Adjoa Andoh) serve as means to an in-depth understanding of the material. Also there are many ways by which we remember and there are so many things to remember. We remember in the ache of our bodies, in the strong lurch of the dance, the swish of the blade of sugar cane or maybe in the magic of the glance. Therefore in weave of ritual symbolism this video searches Grace Nichols' poetry to call upon Nanny. 'The Reunion'. It attempts to re-light, for contemporary Black Britain, the torch of freedom lit centuries by Toussaint and others in the Caribbean.
The Long-Memoried Woman has seen over and over the action she must take and in a Calinda war song, this chantwell/ stick fighter/ warrior incants in the middle of downtown London :
I coming back
I coming back
I have crossed an ocean,
I have lost my tongue
From the root of the old
A new one has sprung
I coming back
I coming back
'I Is A Long-Memoried Woman' won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1983 for Grace Nichols. The video by the same name won the Gold Award at the New York Film Festival and the last I heard it was being considered by Channel Four TV, BBC and ITV for possible broadcast in Britain. Ms. Solomon spent many years in Toronto and Paris working in the theatre and at present is a radio drama producer at the BBC in London. It is, therefore, no surprise that there is already a radio version of 'I Is A Long-Memoried Woman' available and there is talk of a stage version. The 'Long-Memoried Woman' can never stop. Restless. The strong sense of journey continues. It must.
I hope we get a chance to see this celebration of the survival of the African woman, to witness this creation of the Caribbean, to celebrate the survival of the African race in video poetry, on public television in the Caribbean.
Is that you Nanny?
Is that you,
Nanny?
Tony Hall is a television producer, actor and teacher. He lives in Tobago, and commutes regularly to Trinidad, Toronto and London.
