My roots and purpose as an artist...
"I was born in Delices, a village on the South-Eastern coast of Dominica in the Caribbean. There, West African and European cultures blended into a beautiful mixture of music, costumes, dance, and color during festivities such as the pre-Lenten Masquerade (Carnival, or Mardi Gras).
People danced the bele, mazouk, and quadrille to the accompaniment of drums and jing ping bands. Even today, village chantwels (female lead singers and composers) create songs about social and political issues, as well as the latest village gossip.
On full moon nights, young and old gathered to sing, dance, tell stories, and play music and ring games. In every home, grandparents recounted to children stories of the mythical and folk characters like Soucouyan and Lougarou, who still--it is said--inhabit the countryside. Cultural activity was an integral part of daily life. Production of staple crops like cassava (manioc, or yuca) excluded wage labor through a system called koudmen (from the French coup de main), though which villagers traded skills and work hours. At harvest time, women scraped the cassava roots while men ground them and dried the mash over the fire in huge, shallow iron pots.
As we worked, everyone sang to the music of drums and the ti bwa, a length of heavy bamboo placed on a stand and played by several percussionists, each with two sticks. Work songs also echoed across the village to accompany the arduous hauling of logs from the nearby mountains to the coast for building dugout canoes and houses. Those rhythms and melodies, and that spirit of community work, shaped my development as a person and an artist.
As a performer, popular theater teacher, and community worker, it is my mission, therefore, to help restore the arts to their role in the continuing renewal of community. I strive to do this through performance pieces blending traditional with contemporary cultural forms, and also through popular theater, which fosters a process of collective reflection. creation, and action. In this way, I hope to contribute to overcoming the problems that afflict our society, and to preserving the links between art and daily life."
How to reach us:
Delmance Ras Mo Moses
Mo n' Mo Music
640 orange Street
New Haven, CT 06511
USA.
Telephone (203) 605 0925
e-mail: rasmo@igc.org