Abstract

See Bio

Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla, Dreams: Repetition, Rhythm, and the Creole Sacred

– Ananya Kabir

‘Where twain meet, where Hindu and African tangle, their offspring are called: Dougla.’

In my essay for this collection, I draw on a decade’s worth of research on African-heritage dance and my reformulation of ‘creolization’ in order to explicate the relationship not just between what Stuart Hall called présence Africaine and présence Européenne in the circum-Atlantic world, but also that which he omitted to name: présence Asiatique.

In conceiving of Dougla, what did Geoffrey Holder retain of the Indian heritage Trinidadians of his island, their communal structures, their clothing, and their expressive religiosities? How did these elements transform into the minimalist yet hypnotic grandeur of Dougla which explores a most taboo subject in post-Plantation life, the mutual desire between African and Indian protagonists? Taking rhythm as the basic template for cultural sharing and co-creation in diaspora, and analysing archive and repertoire together, I focus on repetition and rhythm, as extruded on the processional dynamic, festive solemnity, and closed communal world that define Dougla, as the key to unlocking the secret of Holder’s Afro-Indic vision, that goes beyond facile and reductive views on ‘appropriation’ and dares to dream into being an impossible world.

            My interpretation of Dougla is supported by analysis of a little-studied text by Holder—a collection of short stories called Black Gods, Green Islands (1959). I also examine the musical score of Dougla, as composed by Tania Leon, to add depth to my argumentation.