2017 was another successful year in achieving our goals, i.e. to entertain, educate, promote and inspire positive awareness of our Jamaican cultural heritage.
JANUKA enjoyed dancing the quadrille at 21 private and public events and facilitated 14 quadrille workshops in local schools.
Feedback from performances has been very positive and encouraging, praising the work we do voluntarily and the passion we display. For example:
Deptford Market Yard (2017)
“Thank you for being part of Deptford Market Yard’s spring season of free events and performances in the yard. It’s fantastic that JANUKA are keeping the tradition, and the important story of the Jamaican Quadrille alive in London. Your performances, dressed in traditional quadrille costumes – added a sense of ceremony, colour and of course fun to the Market Yard. I think from the number of people that stopped to watch, visitors to the Market Yard very much enjoyed both performances, As well as the set dances, the follow along lesion and the singing of traditional songs to round things off were great additions to the event. We hope you had as much fun as we did at Deptford Market Yard. Thank you for performing for us!” (Catherine)
Festival of International Traditional Dances (2017)
“Thank you so much for JANUKA’s superb performance at Dance Around the World in 2017 We were all quite overwhelmed by the outstandingly high quality of all the performances at the event. The audience was certainly delighted by JANUKA’s beautiful expressive and warm performance….It was such a pleasure to have JANUKA back at Dance Around the World this year” (Anne)
Lewisham People’s Day (2017)
“Thank you so much to JANUKA for the performance and workshop in the Little Big Tent. I have attached some photos that I took which show how engaging the workshop was. Also one of the participants came up to me and thanked us for programming the session. I think her comments sum it up better than I can.
“That was so wonderful. The dancing was fun but the best thing was to know the history of it. It’s part of my history that I want to know about”
It was magical and I have asked K to extend an invitation for you to join us again next year” (Sarah)
Quadrille Workshops in Schools (2017)
These were the highlights of the year. The aims and objectives of the workshops were to:
- Inspire and encourage positive awareness of our Jamaican cultural heritage to children from multi-cultural/ethnic backgrounds.
- Create an environment that facilitates the acquisition of knowledge and understanding of the origins, rationale, and styles of quadrille dancing.
- Encourage learning of some basic steps/ figures and geometric patterns.
- Encourage free-spiritedness, friendships, exercise, laughter, relaxation, enjoyment and positive interactions.
- Communicate the powerful message of the therapeutic value of music and dance regardless of age, race, culture, ethnicity, physical and mental ability.
- Increase awareness of how qualities inherent in dancing the Quadrille, can be transferred to real life situations.
The acronym – SOCIAL INTERACTIONS – was used to structure achievable objectives.
I could sense the air of excitement and curious anticipation as groups of 30 + children and their teachers entered the room in single file, to be briefed before commencing each workshop. After warm welcome and introductions, they engaged with us in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. During the 40-45 minutes sessions, I explained the characteristics and discipline of the quadrille dance and demonstrated some Balance steps, Entrance March, and Figure of 8. They learnt quickly and executed the movements energetically and with individual stylistic interpretations!
Feedback from workshops in schools
The children and their teachers thoroughly enjoyed the experience, as evident from their eager participation, the buzz in the room, the verbal and over 100 individual written feedback slips received. I was particularly overwhelmed by their sense of observation, drawings and cathartic comments. Words and phrases repeatedly stated by the children included;
“ really enjoyable; inspirational; amazing; brilliant; fantastic; wonderful; loads of fun; lovely; entertaining; a dream come true; smiled from start to finish; thoroughly enjoyed myself; would love to do it again; good exercise; first class; well organised; thank you.”
From an educational perspective, many of the children and teachers said they learnt something new from the workshops, not just about the dance movements and the discipline, but about Jamaica and the African – European connections, about themselves, and about JANUKA.
Comments from children included:
“I think this was a good opportunity to learn something about my history. I would love to do it again;
“I enjoyed learning a new dance from Jamaica and I had lots of fun”
“I never knew about this type of dance before, even though I am Jamaican, I only knew dancehall
“I really enjoyed the dance as it let us look into the lives of Jamaicans and was really fun”
“Thanks for teaching a Jamaican dance. I enjoyed it 100%
Doing this brought the biggest smile to my face.1000 stars. Big up my country”
“Thanks for teaching me. I will ask my Dad if he knows this dance, I had loads of fun”,
I enjoyed learning new things and having fun with my friends and also the teacher that taught us”
“I really enjoyed the experience that I got to have today, at first I didn’t think I was going to like it, but at the end I came out with a big smile on my face. If it had ratings out of ten then I would give it ten for all your kindness that you showed and the patience that you have is brilliant. Thank you”
“I loved the movements of the dance and the music”.
“Thank you for coming. Hope you come again”
Comments from teachers included:
“Thank you for this amazing experience. We all had a great time learning about the influence of the African and European cultures on how the slaves danced in Jamaica”
“Your customer service is excellent and respectful. I would recommend JANUKA to another school”
“To Beverley and Team, Thank you very much, I thoroughly enjoyed myself”
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the “insightful” teachers who grasped the opportunity that enabled us to provide this unique learning opportunity for their students.
Thank you to all the JANUKA members who helped me to facilitate these workshops. We all felt it was had an enjoyable and worthwhile experience….We would welcome the opportunity to do this again.
From: Beverley Bogle: Quadrille Group Coordinator
