Rituals and Worldbuilding: A Round-Table Discussion

The following is a transcript of a roundtable discussion between Camille Quamina, Senior Lecturer in the School of Drama at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Kingston, Jamaica; Marvin George, Dean of the School of Drama at the Edna Manley College; Honor Ford-Smith, Associate Professor of Cultural and Artistic Practices for Environmental and Social Justice at York University in Toronto, Canada; and Jason Allen-Paisant, Associate Professor of Aesthetic Theory and Decolonial Thought at the University of Leeds. It took place online on April 26, 2021. The topic of discussion was the use of rituals in Quamina's and George's theatre practices. Additionally, in speaking about the function of festivals, rituals, and everyday performance in Caribbean life, we opened up a discussion about how to define Blackness in the Caribbean context, and about whether there were several such definitions, since we felt that this was significant in framing the notion of Black Caribbean futures.