Conference presentation in Cork

Kate Spanos will present her paper, “Rhythms of the Black and Green in Montserrat’s Masquerade Dance” at the Irish Caribbean Connections conference in Cork, Ireland.

Abstract:
I will present ethnographic research about Montserrat’s masquerade dance, a tradition that has been recontextualized over the island’s history of cultural development. Montserrat is unique because of its small population of 5,000, but far-reaching transatlantic connections—as a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean West Indies, and with historical Irish and African diasporic connections. Their masquerade dance dates back to the colonial/slave era of the 18th century, and it has been described as a dance of rebellion and resistance against Anglo-Irish slave masters that combines African rhythms with Irish dance steps. Today, the masquerades have evolved into a performance of national identity during the post-traumatic redevelopment period, following a volcanic crisis in the 1990s that led to mass displacement, emigration, and questions of cultural identity.
I will discuss how the cultural knowledge that is embedded in the rhythms and movements of the masquerades contributes to the (re)construction of national narratives, as well as challenges individual interpretations of cultural identities on the island. I draw on Diana Taylor’s notion of archive and repertoire (2003) to question how the masquerade dance provides an archive that is itself intangible and performative—reframed and repurposed across space and time—when place and materiality are threatened by cultural trauma and natural disaster. In my research, I focus on how the masquerade dance relates to the island’s often- debated “triangular” heritage of Irishness, Africanness, and Montserratianness, especially as it is performed during their St. Patrick’s Festival in March. Through this lens, I question who creates Montserrat’s archive, for whom it is created, and who has the authority to change, impact, or resist that archive. In my presentation, I will identify the dominant patterns of the masquerades that provide the structure for tracing an archive that is created and embodied in Montserratian cultural performance.

Biography:
Kathleen (Kate) Spanos earned her doctorate in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies from the University of Maryland in College Park (2016), and she holds a Master’s degree in Traditional Irish Dance Performance from the University of Limerick (2008). Her primary research interest is in the intersection of Irish and African dance and music in the diasporas of the Americas and the Caribbean, and she uses embodied ethnographic research methods to explore questions of national, cultural, and racial identities. Her dissertation about festival performances on the Caribbean island of Montserrat is entitled, “Dancing the Archive: Rhythms of Change in Post- Volcano Identities on Montserrat, West Indies.”