The NDTC dancers perform one of their more challenging numbers at the opening of this year's season of dance at the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue, in July. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Jamaica's National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC), generally regarded as the Caribbean region's premier dance-theatre ensemble, has been invited by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to appear at Carifesta IX which Trinidad is hosting as a 'signal event'.

This is the second time that the NDTC has been so designated, the last time being at Carifesta VII in 1992. The renowned dance company has been, along with the late Louise Bennett-Coverley, a prized event as far back as 1972 at the first Carifesta held in Guyana and has been a major attraction at other Carifestas held in Jamaica and Cuba in the '70s.

It will appear with the renewed ensemble of young and talented dancers - led by Natalie Chung, Marlon Simms, Alicia Glasgow, Mark Phinn, Jermaine Rowe, Candice Morris and Marisa Benain - singers and musicians, after a successful season in Jamaica in August as well as a highly acclaimed tour to Panama in late August. The Trinidad and Tobago public, along with participants from some 17 countries of the region, will be treated to works by new choreographers such as Christopher Walker whose Variations a Ska is an imaginative exploration of one of the finest expressions of Jamaican contemporary music as well as the music of Prisoner of the System, a group of Jamaican-Canadian musicians that has provided new interpretations of Bob Marley's music for Clive Thompson's ODE, costumed by Marley's daughter Cedella.

Artistic Director Rex Nettleford will present his latest work Katrina, recalling the tragedy of the New Orleans disaster last year and all that it signified, including the suffering of the people of African ancestry in the hemisphere, the invocation of ancestral deities to ease the pain and a people resilience helped by the well known hymnodic celebration by Bahamian-American James Weldon Johnson (Lift Every Voice and Sing) with additional music by Grubb Cooper and Marjorie Whylie. decor is by Michael Lorde and costume design by Barry Moncrieffe.

Wide-ranging repertoire

Among the offerings from the wide-ranging repertoire are Spirits at a Gathering, created by Nettleford to the pygmy-based world music score 'Deep Forest' with costumes designed by former principal Arlene Richards, and the ancestral Gerrehbenta. These costumes were designed by the late Don Bucknor and music is the NDTC Singers accompanied by Henry Miller, Ewan Simpson, and Jesse Golding on the benta introduced by the meaningful flute tunes played by Minky Jefferson and Kamau Khalfani, and with Wesley Scott as vocal soloist.

The NDTC Singers will themselves be presenting two suites of songs arranged by musical director Marjorie Whylie.

Performances are scheduled for the Queen's Hall Theatre in Port-of-Spain and the Naparima Bowl in San Fernando with a workshop to be conducted by Associate Director Barry Moncrieffe in Tobago on Monday, September 25. The company returns home on September 26.