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.