Exhibition looks at reasons for cultural practices
The majority of Belizeans have probably heard of or seen a performance of the Garifuna dances John Cunu or Charikanari, as well as the Mayan Deer and Cortes dances. But how many of you can say who or what influenced these cultural displays or what they mean? Fortunately, that’s the purpose of an exhibition at the Belize City House of Culture entitled “Masquerades of Belize.”
Rita Mae Hyde, Researcher, I.S.C.R.
“People know of the dances in terms of what they see performance-wise or they look at it as a form of entertainment, but a lot of people are actually devoid of the actual cultural contexts of these dances and what they actually represent.”
“If people understand what the dances mean, they more understand the particular cultural groups, they are more appreciative towards these groups and we kinda get a sense that we share in the rich cultural inheritance of Belize together as Belizeans.”
“You look at the John Cunu and the Charikanari and you see the overflowing of spiritualism, you see resistance in terms of the John Cunu and the symbolic representation that has in terms of fearlessness of the oppressors, symbolically mocking British customs.”
”The Cortes Dance, the infamous conquistador, Hernan Cortes. This dance, it’s a sad dance, it’s sombre because it presents a picture—it basically depicts a time in history, the conquest of the Maya people. When you look at that dance, there are a lot of rituals involved, a lot of prayers, the costumes, the masks they have to be fed before the performers can even wear the mask because it’s all connected.”
“You have the deer dance. You know hunting, vitality is an important part of Maya life and if you look at it also in terms of the connectedness to Mayan reverence with nature, you see all of that coming out in the deer dance. And in the deer dance, the deer because of the name of the dance is the chief character in the dance.”
“We’re inviting everybody to come and see the exhibition. There is so much information, as cultural citizens you must come and look at what we have in here. Like I said, the four dances are here, the meaning behind the masks. No more is it acceptable for us just to look at these dances and say, oh that’s nice, and it is funny and it is done well. It’s more than that and we need to get that picture.”
The exhibition will run for six months and can be viewed between the hours of eight-thirty a.m. and four-thirty p.m. at the Belize City House of Culture.
