Clara Reyes

 

Clara honors “older heads” for information in university study of the Ponum dance .

GREAT BAY, St. Martin (June 30, 2003)—It will be a fitting 155th anniversary tribute to Emancipation Day when the video “companion” to Clara Reyes master’s study of the Ponum is shown here at the Cultural Center on Tuesday, July 1, 2003, from 6 PM to 7:30 PM.

The Ponum, St. Martin’s only surviving folk dance, has been the subject of intense and well-documented study and comparative analysis by Reyes since the mid-1990s. In fact, the Ponum is now the national dance and unifying symbol of the history and culture of the whole island of St. Martin. .

At the July 1 free public presentation, song diva LaVaune Henry will welcome the audience as the mistress of ceremony. Reyes will follow with a brief background to the study and introduction to the video. The video may indeed be the highlight and proof of the first-of-a-kind study for St. Martin, but what promises to be quite touching is when Reyes honors a number of the senior citizens who were her primary and secondary research interviewees and spiritual guides. .

The “older heads,” such as Jean “Tata” Brooks, Millie Nelson and Victor January will be the special guests of the dancer/choreographer and presented with certificates of appreciation. Family members will represent others who are unable to attend because of age. Some of the seniors, such as philanthropist Emilio Wilson and midwife and Ponum dancer “Tan’tan Nez” Baly-Lewis have passed on since the interviews were conducted and they too will receive a certificate of appreciation posthumously from Reyes. .

The actual thesis, a 130-page document entitled “From the People of St. Martin, Ponum an Emancipation Story,” will be on exhibit for public viewing following the video and during the reception. The study was completed in July 2002 as a requirement for the fulfillment of Reyes’s Master of Fine Arts from the University of New York College at Brockport. .

The Ponum thesis presentation is organized by Imbali Center for Creative Movement, Council on the Arts, Jewel Foundation, House of Nehesi Publishers and Conscious Lyrics Foundation. .

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Clara Reyes presents master’s degree study about Ponum on Emancipation Day.

GREAT BAY, St. Martin (June 26, 2003)—St. Martin’s leading choreographer Clara Reyes will present her master’s thesis on the Ponum dance to the public here at the Cultural Center, Backstreet, on July 1, 2003. .

The Emancipation Day presentation, from 6 PM to 7:30 PM, will consist mainly of video showing the dance steps, footage of performances in St. Martin and New York and interviews with the elders who made up the main source of Reyes’s research. .

The Ponum is the St. Martin national dance that has survived for over 100 years. “Taking the Ponum confidently into the university, writing and defending the thesis in front of professors and scholars, returning home and now presenting the document and video, is my ‘thank you’ and gift to the people of St. Martin. The July 1st presentation is especially for the older heads that helped with the information and the dance steps that they danced when they were young or that they saw their parents and neighbors dancing. .

“Some of the old people I spoke with have passed on. But the information they left with us is serving to pass on an important creation of our culture to another generation. This transfer of ideas, cultural creativity and this aspect of the St. Martin identity will keep their names, faces and voices alive in our history as well,” said Reyes. .

The 130-page document, entitled “From the People of St. Martin, Ponum an Emancipation Story ,” will be on exhibit during the presentation and the reception that will follow. .

The study was completed in July 2002 as a requirement for the fulfillment of Reyes’s Master of Fine Arts from the University of New York College at Brockport. Reyes said that the inspiration and the organization of the information grew out of her commission from House of Nehesi Publishers Foundation. Also an accomplished dancer, Reyes’s task was to research and choreograph a definitive version of the national dance for the foundation’s Ponum documentary film. .

The documentary footage has been completed since 2000, but funds to edit and produce copies of the film have been tough to raise, according to House of Nehesi Publishers.

Info taken from: http://www.houseofnehesipublish.com/newsreleases9.html