Jackie Guy | |
---|---|
Born | Carlton Guy |
Occupation(s) | Dancer, choreographer, teacher |
Years active | 1960s–present |
Career | |
Former groups | National Dance Theatre Company University of the West Indies Dance Society Kukuma Dance Company movements Dance Company |
Carlton Harold "Jackie" Guy CD MBE is a Jamaican dancer, choreographer and teacher who has been based in the United Kingdom since the mid-1980s.
Guy grew up in the Harbour View area of Kingston and took up dancing as a boy, inspired by the film West Side Story . [1] With his friends, he would watch Alma Mock Yen's dance group and was invited to join in 1964. [1] While at Windward Road School he choreographed a dance based on a song by folklorist Louise Bennett-Coverley (Miss Lou), which was performed for her. [1] He gave up dancing while he began a career as an accountant for RJR but soon returned to dance, taking lessons with Eddy Thomas and Rex Nettleford. [1] Guy would later work with Bennett-Coverley in the 1967 pantomime Anancy and Pandora and the 1971 production Music Boy. [1]
In 1968 Guy was invited to join Thomas and Nettleford's National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC), and was encouraged to develop his choreography and to take up teaching. [1] He performed with the NDTC for 15 years, becoming principal dancer, and taught dance at the Social Development Commission, the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, and the School of Dance. [1] He was also director of the University of the West Indies Dance Society for almost 18 years. [1] [2]
After visiting England in 1985 and touring Britain with the NDTC in 1986, he relocated there in 1987 and has continued to teach in London, using his own "JaGuy Technique". [1] [3] In the UK he choreographed Yvonne Jones Brewster's production of Derek Walcott's O Babylon! and became the artistic director for Birmingham's Kokuma Dance Company, moving the group towards Caribbean styles. [1] [4] With Kokuma he won Black Dance Awards for Best Production and Best Choreography and the Prudential Award for Excellence, Innovation and Accessibility. [1]
He went on to teach in universities and work in several major theatres, and choreographed the successful London stage version of Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come , which went on to tour internationally. [1] [3] [5] He also taught in Zimbabwe as part of a British Council initiative. [2] His Innings 84 Not Out, a tribute to his mother, was performed at the Royal Opera House in 2006. [6] As a tribute to the recently deceased Bennett-Coverley he choreographed Only Fi Yuh in 2007 for the Movements Dance Company of Jamaica as part of the company's silver jubilee concert season. [7] [8]
In October 2011, Guy received a Lifetime Award from the Association of Dance of the African Diaspora (ADAD). [1] [9]
Guy was awarded the MBE in November 2012 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to dance education in the United Kingdom. [1] [2]
In 2013 he contributed Bankra, a reworking of a 1986 folk dance dealing with the cultural significance of the "bankra" (a large basket) that he originally created for the UWI Dance Society, to the NDTC's 51st season. [10] [11]
In 2015 it was announced that Guy would be awarded the Order of Distinction, Commander Class (CD) by the Jamaican government later that year. [12]