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Rex Nettleford (Text by) : Roots and Rhythms: Jamaica's National Dance Theatre

Andre Deutsch Limited, London, 1969

ISBN 9780233961255

4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. CV1 - A first edition (First published 1969 stated) hardcover book SIGNED by Maria LaYacona (first name only) and inscribed to previous owner and also SIGNED by Rex Nettleford on the page before the title page in very good condition in good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has less than an inch tear on the front top left corner, 1.25" tear on the back top left corner, wrinkling, chipping, crease, and some tiny tears on the edges and corners, a few chipping/open tear on the upper left side of the spine, scattered rubbing, scuffing, scratches, and foxing, light tanning and shelf wear. Book has some bumped corners, scattered foxing/stains on the page edges and first few and last few pages, lightly moisture soiled on the sides opposite the spine of some inside pages, light tanning and shelf wear. Photographs by Maria LaYacona. 11.5"x8.5", 128 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. REX NETTLEFORD (Ralston Milton "Rex" Nettleford), was a Jamaican scholar, past student of Cornwall College, social critic, choreographer, and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), the leading research university in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Born on 3 February 1933 in Falmouth, Jamaica, Nettleford attended Unity Primary School in Bunkers Hill, Trelawny, and graduated from Cornwall College in Montego Bay, Jamaica, before going to the University of the West Indies (UWI) to obtain an honours degree in history. As a child he sang and recited in school concerts, sang in the church choir, danced, and began working as a choreographer at the age of 11 with the Worm Chambers Variety Troupe, which helped to fund his studies. At Cornwall College he acted in productions of the college's drama club, and was published as a poet. He was a recipient of the 1957 Rhodes Scholarship to Oriel College, Oxford, where he received a postgraduate degree in Politics, returning to Jamaica in the early 1960s to take up a position at UWI. At UWI he first came to attention as a co-author (with M. G. Smith and Roy Augier) of a groundbreaking study of the Rastafari movement in 1961. In 1962, Nettleford and Eddy Thomas co-founded the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, an ensemble which under his direction did much to incorporate traditional Jamaican music and dance into a formal balletic repertoire. For over twenty years, Nettleford has also been the artistic director for the University Singers of the University of the West Indies, Mona campus in Jamaica. The combination of Nettleford as artistic director and Noel Dexter as musical director with the University Singers has seen the creation of what is referred to as "choral theatre". Beginning with the collection of essays, Mirror, Mirror, published in 1969 and his editing and compiling of the speeches and writings of Norman Manley, Manley and the New Jamaica, in 1971, Nettleford established himself as a serious public historian and social critic. In 1968, he took over direction of the School for Continuing Studies at the UWI and then of the Extra-Mural Department. In 1975, the Jamaican state recognized his cultural and scholarly achievements by awarding him the Order of Merit. He also received the Gold Musgrave Medal (1981) and 13 honorary doctorates, including one in Civil Law from Oxford University. In 1996, he became Vice-Chancellor of the UWI, and held that office until 2004, when he was succeeded by E. Nigel Harris. MARIA LAYACONA was an American-born photographer who worked primarily in Jamaica. For its first three decades, she was the official photographer for the country's National Dance Theatre Company. LaYacona's parents emigrated from Italy to America and she was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 18 November 1926. Her father ran a portrait studio from the family home and she and her brother both assisted him in his darkroom.[2] She studied at the Winona School of Professional Photography in Winona Lake, Indiana, before moving to New York City in 1950 where she supported herself by taking photographs for publicity shots and society weddings. She worked as a photojournalist for Time and Life and, in 1955 accepted an assignment from Sports Illustrated, traveling to Jamaica to shoot the test series between Australia and the West Indies at Sabina Park. She was entranced by the country and returned the same year and spent the rest of her life in Jamaica. To support herself, she accepted jobs for advertisements and tourism promotion and introduced school photography packages to the country, but her passion was portraiture. Her portrait of Prime Minister Michael Manley appears on the $1,000 banknote. She photographed artists and politicians, as well as everyday Jamaicans-fisherman at work, and children playing. In 1964, two years after its founding, she joined the National Dance Theatre Company as official photographer, a position she retained until her retirement in 1992. Her photographs of the dancers were published in two books, Roots and Rhythms (1969) and Dance Jamaica: Renewal and Continuity (1985). Several of her dance photographs were also featured on Jamaican postage stamps. She was founder of the Colour Photography Club, which was to become the Jamaica Photography Society. By 2000 LaYacona had retired to a townhouse in Kingston. She died on 28 April 2019.. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Hardcover. Jacket: Good

First Edition
Signed by Author

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