By Cayman Compass Contributor Christopher Tobutt
When Culturama 2026 took place on 16-17 May at the Harquail Theatre, it was not just as a performance weekend, but also as a statement of where Caymanian dance now stands.
The UCCI Dance Company – a once modest campus troupe – have, under the long, steady vision of Monika Lawrence and the rising brilliance of Ballet Master Joshua McLean, become something rare: a company with discipline, identity and a clear artistic mandate. What they are building is not just entertainment. It is excavation, the shaping of national memory through movement – dance that changes, compels, challenges.
This year’s programme began with solo dancer Megan Hurlston and ‘Island Prayer.’ Her long dress trailing like a secret whisper, her movement slow, deliberate, devotional – a reminder that Cayman’s story often begins in stillness before it rises into song.
‘Dis Poem’ arrived like a warning siren – Mutabaruka’s relentless dub-poet litany of injustice memory like broken dreams turning into nightmares: “Dis poem shall speak of the wretched sea that washed ships to these shores.” The UCCI dancers answered with bodies that jerked, resisted, reached and recoiled. Led by McLean, the ensemble – Hurlston, Renita Barnes, Sauntie Kelly, Torrean Shields, Jevonne Reid, Tyler Barrett, Brian Watler and Brianna Kentish – moved with disciplined fury. It was unsettling, necessary and unmistakably Caymanian. This was not borrowed pain, but our own questions formed from unresolved histories and unfinished sentences.
One of the night’s most arresting moments came when Colindra Shavon Garvey Sterling sang Gethsemane. In a red dress that caught the light like flame, she carried Christ’s plea – “let this cup pass from me” – with a trembling honesty that held the room utterly still. It felt like a heart cracking open.
The evening shifted again with ‘Ebb and Flow’, choreographed by Renita Barnes to music by John Coltrane and St. Germain. The dancers became tidewater – surging, retreating, suspended in exquisite stillness. A meditation on change, on the currents that shape us, beckon us and buffet us, whether we welcome them or not.
Then came ‘Work It Out’, choreographed by Khalia Gordon – fierce, rhythmic, confrontational. It carried the spirit of Rex Nettleford: the belief that street culture – everyday culture – is worthy of the stage. The UCCI dancers’ timing was impeccable.
A tribute to Jimmy Cliff followed – dancers embodying the joy, energy and secret heartache of his songs, especially in the loneliness and quiet resolve displayed in ‘Many Rivers to Cross’.
Then came one of the night’s most ambitious works: ‘Odyssey – A Journey of Mankind’. Set to Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard and Black Book, it traced a sweeping arc of human striving – struggle, discovery, transcendence – a vision of progress that felt both global and deeply local.
The second half opened with ‘Strange Waters’, choreographed by Lawrence – a meditation on the African diaspora that severed and scattered, but still very much alive. Then a revelation: Joshua McLean’s original work ‘Sinking Into Inertia’, a three-movement exploration of helplessness and resistance that is troubling, beautiful and brilliantly crafted.
The evening softened into ‘The Prayer’, then sharpened again with ‘The Vow’ – a tender, painful story of love, betrayal and the courage to walk away.
And finally, the finale: Caymanians in unmistakable traditional dress and bright colours, dancing to ‘Munzie Boat in the Sound’ and other local folk favourites. These solid, shoulder-to-shoulder pieces exuded strength and joy – not as museum pieces, but as living, laughing, exuberant declarations of who we are.
Culturama 2026 was Cayman telling its own story – with dignity, courage and joy. And the UCCI dancers, under Lawrence and McLean, is becoming one of the nation’s most important storytellers.
Christopher Tobutt is a freelance journalist who has written for various publications in the Cayman Islands since 2003.
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