Festival Workshop
Sunday June 30
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
In this dance workshop, we will learn how to do the traditional Jamaican dance of Mayppole. As a group, participants of all ages will learn the basic basket weave and three-strand braid. The final product will remain on the piece transforming it into a community piece.
artist statement
“Come mek mi hole yuh han” or “Come, let me hold your hand” is a line from a well-known Jamaican folk song "Long time gal mi neva si yu" by the Poet, Dr. Louise Bennett-Coverly aka “Miss Lou”. This song speaks to the reunion of friends who have not seen each other for a long time, they greet each other, hold hands and dance together. I sang this song with my friends as a child in dance circles at lunchtime or when we were on stage doing the Maypole. This piece is reminiscent of my childhood and the gift of learning with the community. It is a reunion but also acknowledges the gradual loss of community building through traditional practices within the younger generation.
Maypole involves the plaiting of different coloured ribbons around a pole while dancing. It originated from May Day celebrations in England and during Jamaica’s independence celebration from the British in 1962, 63 villages around the island decided to make it a part of yearly celebrations. So much of our culture as Jamaicans like the Maypole is a combination of colonial and African traditions. We added the tribal movements of the West Africans, the folk songs we created out of hardship to encourage each other to keep going and our version of the clothing we were once forced to wear, the bandana headwrap and dress.
In this piece, I’ve included the bandana or Madras cloth, which was transformed by Miss Lou from being seen as a symbol of slavery to one of celebration and freedom.' Bandhana' which means 'to tie' in Hindi is from Chennai (previously known as Madras) in India. It was made into cotton from silk by the British for the slaves to wear so that they were easily identifiable.
about the artist
Raneece Buddan (she/her) is a Jamaican interdisciplinary visual artist who resides in Treaty 6 territory, Amiswaciwâskahikan (Edmonton). She immigrated to Canada in 2015 and completed her BFA in Art and Design with Distinction at the University of Alberta in 2020. Her artistic practice is an ongoing journey of reconnection. It’s an attempt to learn more about her cultural identity as an Afro and Indo-Caribbean woman through material exploration and textile research. Her pieces are self-portraits that show the beauty of merging these cultures while also addressing the generational loss of connection to culture and ancestry as a result of slavery, indentured servitude and ongoing assimilation in Jamaica. Textile research plays a major role in her work to represent each ethnicity, serving as a replacement for her skin tone in her paintings and sculptures. While also touching on the magnitude racial identifiers such as hair and skin tone play in being a part of a group.
As an interdisciplinary artist, Raneece finds joy in a well-rounded practice of oil painting, woodworking, clay sculpting, pottery, printmaking, weaving and resin casting. Her artwork has been exhibited throughout Alberta, the USA and France. She has completed Artist Residencies in Edmonton, Alberta, Salem, New York and most recently in Mandelieu-La-Napoule, France.