20th Biennal Conference, Aruba

Title: Caribbean Language Expression: Ritual, Creolization and Performance
By Jorge Luis Morejon

Abstract: African languages in the Caribbean, specifically in Cuba, owe their survival to the integration of different processes. Ritual, creolization and performance are three factors that have contributed to the formation of Caribbean expression. For centuries, religiosity and artistry have mixed to give life to a form of embodied language manifested through chants, dances and drama. They have become part of the archive and the repertoire of Caribbean performance practices that have revitalized archetypes representative of the people’s believes. African rituals have found an echo in Cuba where their archetypes, their dances and chants have become part of a pantheon. The language used to express these rituals is however a creolized version of its original mother languages. The mixture of Yoruba, Abakua and Bantu with Spanish has given birth to a Cuban Creole that because of its wider exposure finds its maximum exponent in the performing arts. One example of this is the play Maria Antonia, recently staged in Trinidad and Tobago, where the use of creolized chants, dialogues and dances communicate the connection of the present with the ancestors through ritualized drama. This phenomenon constitutes one more form of Caribbean expression thorugh which creolized languages have maintained a vibrant presence in creolized Afro-Cuban rituals and performance practices.