Norma Claire, director of the National Choreographic Development Center of Guyana Touka danse, is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Danses Métisses festival this year. It measures the progress made in promoting dance throughout the Guyanese territory.
Norma Claire is an essential character on the cultural scene in Guyana and that’s saying something. His action for the development of choreographic arts for more than 20 years shows his pugnacity. She was able to transform her dance association into a National Choreographic Development Center. A label obtained in 2015 after 3 years of preparation. The first of its kind for all of Overseas, recently reinforced by that of Reunion. “It is the exemplary nature of Guyana that has helped motivate and strengthen the Reunion project” underlines Norma Claire. There are 15 centers in total throughout France.
This CDCN has made it possible to carry out numerous training, dissemination and creation actions throughout the territory and above all to work in collaboration with other cultural institutions.
The Danses Métisses festival is holding its 20thth edition since November 21 and ends this Sunday 1is December, Norma Claire speaks about what she calls a great challenge for Guyana:
“20 years of mixed race dances! This represents a great challenge for Guyana to have maintained an 11-day dance festival over all these years. This year we are present in 7 municipalities, Cayenne, Matoury, Rémire-Montjoly, Macouria, Kourou, Saint-Laurent and Maripasoula. So the entire territory is covered up to remote communities. We offer more and more proposals during the week and more and more diversity of dances. This also allows young people, particularly around hip-hop, to value events like the Battle. The last one on November 23 brought together a lot of people at Family Plaza. The next day there was an excellent set mixing all the cultures that exist in Guyana at the Zac Hibiscus, almost 1000 people attended. »
With the Danses Métisses festival, Touka Danses has gradually built an international reputation:
“I can say that it is a festival which, over the years, becomes more and more popular. A multicultural popularity distinguished by the diversity of Guyanese Creole populations of all stripes, people who come from everywhere and that is extremely important. There is more and more interest in the shows presented at l'Encre with original pieces and contemporary creations. This year, we focused on Martinique, Guadeloupe and a promising young dancer from Mayotte. These are rising choreographic artists. There is systematically an opening of the evenings with young people from Guyana such as those from the Adaclam ballet, the creation of the Abondanse troupe, the young people from the conservatory and without forgetting the young people from the Cirque de Saint-Laurent.”
This hard work, without giving up in the face of the many obstacles to overcome, has borne fruit. The CDCN Touka Danses is officially established in Rémire-Montjoly:
“We are happy to be able to officially announce the first stone which will be laid this Friday with the Municipality of Rémire-Montjoly and David Mati deputy delegate for dance from the Ministry of Culture who is coming especially for this occasion. It’s a very beautiful project for a cultural ensemble with a 300-seat performance hall.”
At the end of these two decades, there are now around thirty trained young people who have become professionals. They are in Guyana or elsewhere or even travel back and forth to French Guyana.
“Most of them are well anchored in the territory. Specifies Norma Claire. It is completely new to have professionals except in dance schools who also continue their work. There will therefore be more professionals and dance graduates. I strongly encourage them to graduate. Among other graduates, we have, in particular, two in classical dance, three in contemporary dance as well as three in jazz. We are working to create a music and dance school in Rémire-Montjoly and as CDCN we will provide our expertise. Everything is structured and fits into the socio-economic fabric of the country. »
To the question: have you fulfilled your mission with regard to Guyana? Norma Claire answers in the affirmative:
“I think so, I still do it with a lot of heart, a lot of passion and what encourages me to still be here are also the results with the young people. I am delighted to discuss with those who have become professionals and to have feedback from young people who position themselves as actors and who say: we want to stay in the territory, we are fighting for that and we hope to be a land of welcome for choreographic artists from Europe, Martinique, Guadeloupe who regularly ask to be invited to mixed race dances. »
