When the Body Finds the Words: CARIFESTA Dance Is Writing New Caribbean Languages

Dance is stepping onto CARIFESTA XV as both heartbeat and headline. It’s not just the showcase it usually is. This time, it’s a language lab. “People seem so close but yet so far,” says Dance Lead for the Festival, Aisha Comissiong, while reflecting on how Caribbean dancers often watch global masters from a distance. “This is one of the first CARIFESTAs where a great effort is being made to bring professionals from across the dance world into the Caribbean space for people to learn from directly.”

That is the wager of CARIFESTA Dance in Barbados: that our bodies already know the grammar, and this festival provides the dictionary, teachers, techniques, and traditions that will help the region name itself more boldly on stage and in the studio. Comissiong is explicit about the goal: “I’m hoping that exposure to Caribbean dance excellence will inspire new works. It will inspire new languages… our next generation of Caribbean dance pioneers to come up with new and emerging Caribbean dance forms and nation dance languages.”

The guest list reads like a map of influence. Luther Brown (USA/Jamaica) — two-time Emmy-nominated choreographer behind work for Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Nicki Minaj and more — delivers a hip hop masterclass at EBCCI on Sat 23 Aug, 12.00–2.30 p.m. (come ready; his sessions move fast and fly high).

PHILADANCO! (The Philadelphia Dance Company), renowned for innovation and the preservation of African-American dance traditions, leads a Modern/Contemporary masterclass on Thu 28 Aug, 10.00–12.00, also at EBCCI. Nicole “Pinky” Thomas (Modern/Dunham), an educator whose lineage work keeps technique tied to history, and the week’s centre of gravity is unmistakable: global excellence, grounded in cultural truth.

This isn’t just inspiration; it is access. A PHILADANCO! partner is offering two scholarships to their Summer Intensive — one Barbadian, one regional — with the workshop functioning “almost like an audition.”  That alone makes the week a once in a generation bridge for dancers who have the talent but not always the travel budget. Comissiong is designing the conversations around career as carefully as the choreography: Q&As with the visiting companies will pull back the curtain on professional practice. She says those workshops will “insight into what it is to ‘make it big’… what spaces to be in, who to be networking with and how to prepare to make dance your career.”

Across the programme, styles and lineages tumble over one another in the best possible way:

Sun 24 Aug: Nicole “Pinky” Thomas (Modern/Dunham); Justin Poleon (Barbados — Cheer Dance); Amritam Shakti (Trinidad — Indian dance).

Mon 25 Aug: L’Acadco (Jamaica — Lantech); Tabanka Dance Ensemble (Afrobeats); Omega St Hilaire & Kanille Brudy (SVG — Folk); Daves Guhza (Zimbabwe — Traditional).

Tue 26 Aug: Garth Fagan Dance (USA — Fagan Technique); Tivoli Dance Troupe (Jamaica — Dancehall); Manchoniel Cultural Group (Jamaica — Folk).

Wed 27 Aug: NDTC (Jamaica — Caribbean Contemporary); Gem.in.I Project (Barbados — Inclusive Movement); Tabanka (Talawa Technique).

Fri 29 Aug: Mark Vaughan (Barbados — West African); Shauné Culmer & K’Lysa Knowles (Bahamas — Bahamian Folk).

You can move from Dunham to Dancehall in a day, and from Talawa to Fagan Technique before the sun sets. Caribbean bodies learning the world and the world learning the Caribbean, in one festival week. The Bajan dance community will be everywhere — the Opening Ceremony, Barbados Dance Night, Future in Motion youth showcase, Dancing Archipelago, and even theatre productions like the Ghanaian “Mansa Musa” and Barbados’ “Man Overboard.”

That saturation isn’t clutter; it’s coherence. Barbados is acting as a working studio for the region, letting visiting lineages meet local muscle memory. This is the surest way to turn influence into invention. For generations, the Caribbean’s movement has been praised and policed, celebrated and side-eyed - as if our hips could be told to whisper. CARIFESTA chooses another route. It puts craft beside carnival, technique beside tradition, and says: the way we move is not something to tone down for export; it is something to tone up, refine, and broadcast on our own terms.

The festival’s wider framework backs this up. Under the “Architecture of Innovation” banner, the Symposia and Big Conversations ask hard, structural questions about dance: digital platforms and monetisation, institutional training gaps, models like Edna Manley that can be adapted, and funding for companies across the region. In other words, while the stage is blazing, the blueprint is being drawn — policy and pedagogy undergirding performance, so that the week’s heat turns into next year’s capacity.

Comissiong’s excitement is both personal and generational. “I’m very excited for CARIFESTA Dance,” she says. “I think Caribbean dance excellence is going to be on stage… It’s so critical for us to see what’s happening just a hop, skip and a jump across the islands… I’m hoping this will inspire new languages and our next generation of Caribbean dance pioneers.” She even dares to quantify the dream: if we already recognise one or two nation dance languages, “I’m hoping in the next 10 years we have about three, four, five more.” That is the headline here: authorship. Not imitation, not seasonal spectacle, but authorship. The body naming its own syntax, then exporting it, proudly Caribbean.

Luther Brown - Canadian Choreographer/Artistic Director

Book early for the EBCCI masterclasses — Luther Brown (Sun 24 Aug, 12.00–2.30 p.m.) and PHILADANCO! (Thu 28 Aug, 10.00–12.00) are magnets for both pros and students. Bring water, bring questions, bring humility. Stay for the Q&As. This is where practical advice lands — networks to build, spaces to be in, how to prepare for professional life.

Scholarship alert: If you’re eligible, be audition-ready for PHILADANCO! — the awarding partner expects to select one Barbadian and one regional dancer. By the time the curtain falls, we won’t only have seen great dance; we will have named some of it for ourselves. The point isn’t to tidy the Caribbean into one neat style; it is to write more languages — some we recognise, others we are about to debut. If you’ve ever felt the islands’ movement spoken about in hushed tones, here’s the corrective: centre stage, studio-rigorous, culturally certain.

The floor is open. The room is full of giants and neighbours, and if you listen closely, you’ll hear the region doing exactly what Comissiong hopes: turning proximity into possibility — and possibility into a new Caribbean launching pad.