TRIBUTES
WHEN A MIGHTY TREE FALLS: Remembering Sonia Suzette Williams by Yanique Hume, PhD Like a majestic baobab with its wide and sturdy girth and root system and branches that stretches far beyond its base, Sonia’s presence and reach was tremendous. She often came like a gust of wind, announcing her arrival in her long cotton garments, bold ethnic jewelry and an effervescent smile that could light up even the most overcast skies.
E veryone knew the cadence of her voice which moved between being bold and full- bodied, but when excited, the high octaves would ring through like a bell; and, oh, when she laughed, the whole room would be embraced by its rumble. This was Sonia! A woman who slid across a spectrum of deep ancestral wisdom and knowing and childlike curiosity and play. “Let your light shine through” was one of her abiding mantras and what she beckoned all she encountered to do, and especially for those whose light had been dimmed by life’s trauma and pain. She knew the importance of not only inhabiting our bodies but also unashamedly claiming space and moving through the world with confidence. The theatre in many ways is what shaped this lion-hearted spirit. It is what allowed her to find her voice and the channel through which she lovingly shared her talents. It was her innate gift that would transform many minds and hearts within and beyond the Caribbean. Light shone brightly
her steady companion. It was a space where she went to recharge, restore, and renew her spirit that was in a mode of constant creativity. The saline waters would be her first playground. As she grew into adulthood, it would ferry her across to the United States of America (USA) where she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre Arts and Women’s Studies (1988) at Hamilton College and then over to Nigeria on the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship (1989), where she was immersed in African performance and ritual practice, then across the archipelagic zone of the Caribbean to Jamaica, where she studied Theatre Arts at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts and worked with members of the Sistren Theatre Collectiv e and among theatre giants and acclaimed writers, such as Dennis Scott, Trevor Rhone, Earl Warner, Eugene Williams, Leonie Forbes, Rawle Gibbons, Henk Tjon, Rhoma Spencer, Kendal Hippolyte, and Winston Farrell. While not quite the lone woman, she was certainly one of the few women whose light shone brightly alongside these other Caribbean thespian luminaries and writers. In her native Barbados, Sonia was known for her epic stage production, centering
ritual theatre as an aesthetic language and imperative for reconnecting with the roots of West African performance traditions and their connections to Caribbean expressive forms, along with the means to reaffirm our African ancestral memory and lineage. Critical works Her unflinching investment and interest in the power of performance and love for the theatre and its development in the Caribbean is what would animate much of her critical works, public lectures, workshop and performance poetry. Among some of her more noted plays she directed and/or wrote/adapted include “Pilgrimage to Freedom: A One Woman Show” (1994), which premiered in Martha’s Vineyard and later would be restaged in Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba; “Amandala” (1997), “Return to the Source” (2006); “Odale’s Choice” (2008), which premiered in Barbados and later restaged for CARIFESTA X in Guyana that same year; “Shepherd” (2012), “From Bussa to Barrow” (2016); and in the United Kingdom
Born in the parish of St. Peter, in the
Northwest of Barbados, the sea was
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