By Christopher Tobutt
The Harquail Theatre felt like a threshold the night MOSAIC unfolded on 13 June, a place where the human spirit stepped forward in fragments of motion, breath and colour.
Dancers often emerged first as silhouettes, suspended in semi-darkness against washes of indigo, ember, or gold, as if figures in a Rembrandt had loosened themselves from the canvas and begun to move.
MOSAIC was the Cayman Islands National Dance Company’s 38th-season production, and after the first dance, the audience was treated to a video showing the many years of dance, creativity and movement.
Cayman Islands National Dance Company’s artistic director, Jessica Eden, one of the company’s original dancers, framed the night simply: “Our dancers’ hard work, perseverance and passion have truly brought this MOSAIC of movement to life. Their dedication shines through in every movement, every expression, and every moment on stage.”
‘Awakening the Canvas’ was in two parts. The first, with the dancers wearing white dresses, against a sky-blue background was filled with graceful movements, like a choreographed meditation or prayer, and the second, with flowing brightly coloured skirts was a vivid celebration.
‘Battle of the Beats’ followed – with two ‘dance-gangs’, each with different outfits, and different songs and rhythms, battling it out for mastery of the stage, rather than the streets of a city. ‘Being Me’ was a dance about having the inner strength to stand up for who you really are, without having to wear a mask. ‘Phrases of Love’ was above love growing to maturing. ‘Ancestral Pulse’ was a real treat – a pulsing drumbeat overlaid with African polyrhythms – hypnotic and assertive, setting the dancers in motion. Likewise, ‘Arise and Move’ motivated us to dance through life’s challenges.
MOSAIC’s ‘river-of-dance’ swept wider and deeper with ‘Spectrum’. Danced by the apprentices – nine young performers stepping into their own voices. Set to the textured electronic world of O’Flynn’s ‘Fara’ and the atmospheric pulse of Christian Reindl’s ‘Boreas’, the piece moved between sharp tension and gentle resolution. It was a study in becoming – in learning to inhabit one’s own emotional palette without dimming anyone else’s.
From there, the current carried us into ‘Hope for Tomorrow’, shaped by the steady reassurance of Jimmy Cliff’s ‘Better Days Are Coming’ – a reggae hymn of resilience. Some dancers moved as though carrying invisible burdens; others with the buoyancy of those who have glimpsed a brighter horizon, embodying hardship, courage, and the stubborn belief that change must come: “Better days are coming … by and by.”
Then came the deep water: ‘Rescue’. To Lauren Daigle’s song, Schwannah McCarthy-Brown danced a portrait of grief a breath caught like a whispered prayer. Slowly, mercy entered as presence. Healing appeared not as gathering: the light finding its way back, seeping into the darkened places of the human soul.
By the time ‘Divine Transformation’ – a gospel message in dance – closed the night, apprentices and seasoned dancers moving as one body, one breath. The river widened into something luminous. The mosaic, at last, came into view: a portrait of the human soul navigating darkness, light, and the dappled shadowland between.
Christopher Tobutt is a freelance journalist who has written for various publications in the Cayman Islands since 2003.
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