Arts: From Anguish to Affirmation at NG last Sunday

Its reasonable t o expect that a performance at the National Gallery's "Last Sundays" would hew closely - from a thematic standpoint -  to the visual work being presented.

But even so, the presentation by the Quilt Performing Arts Group, a roughly 7-year old outfit seemed tailor-made for the occasion. On the gallery walls were paintings, photos and installations by four artists that together comprised an eloquent, heartfelt and even piercing conversation on the colonial legacy, identity and determination.

In the "performance area" (which the group artfully expanded to include the entire Gallery (even upstairs) the young ladies displayed not only empathy and wisdom way beyond their years, but skillfully outlined a cultural journey that moved from oppression and the paroxysm of anguish to rage, self-confrontation and finally, affirmation.

All along the way, they were abetted by he use of colour, as their name might suggest. From the "Revivialist white" of their tunics and headwraps to outfits representing the sea and the woods to wraps in a veritable rainbow of shades, the verses and stories in which the characters are enveloped were made even more soulful and the effect was visible on some members of the audience (no doubt others were "holding it in")

After a bit of vicious humour aimed at "church hypocrites" ("Good Neighbours" the production reached near rapturous heights before closing with an affirmative circle  - the job having been well and truly done - with voice, with dance, and with costume.

The exhibition - titled "We Have Met Before " includes  Graham Fagen, Joscleyn Gardner, and Ingrid Pollard and Leasho Johnson. The latter is seen at perhaps his most exuberantly sardonic guise yet, skewering both dancehall culture and the society that largely shuns it. Guyanese-born Pollard offered highly reflective photos, in which physical landmarks (rock formations, drfitwood, the sea itself) summon a challenging sort of nostalgia with echoes of the Middle Passage that has other wise come to us only through the media (books, TV etc). Scotsman Fagen used Robbie Burns' The slave's Lament as the base fora multi-channel video installation (with vocals by singer Ghetto Priest).

It was Gardner's work however, that had the most poignant connections with the slave journey elucidated on stage. She graphicllaly showed the denigration meted out to women, by way of torture devices and the cur's own written record of his encounters, mixed  with the often desparate attempts to abort the resulting pregnancies, as well as to make themselves physically unable to comply.

Together they make a powerful statement about how far we have come and how much further we have to go.