Ralston Milton "Rex" Nettleford was a Jamaican scholar, social critic, choreographer, and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), the leading research university in the Commonwealth Caribbean.
Background
Rex Milton Nettleford was bom in Falmouth, Jamaica, on February 3,1933, the child of Lebertha Palmer and Charles Nettleford. He has traced Ms exposure and involvement in the arts to his days as a choirboy at church, where he sang Handel, Hayden, and Mendelssohn. When he was in sixth grade he participated in an adaptation of Shakespeare's Winter's Tale into Jamaican dialect, and also played Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice.
Education
Complementing his early artistic exploits, Nettleford received a traditional Jamaican education at the Falmouth and Unity Government Schools in Jamaica, the Montego Bay Boys School, and Cornwall College. After graduation from high school he attended the University of the West Indies, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1956.
After his graduation from UWI in 1956, Nettleford moved to England to attend Oriel College of Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. While there, he finished another degree and conducted post-graduate work in political science. From his stay at Oxford Nettleford has said: "Oxford gave me the opportunity to do a lot because, although I was the choreographer, I was virtually co-director of lots of productions. I remember Dudley Moore, a fellow called Stan Daniels, and I did Aristophanes' The Birds to rock music. It was fantastic! I did the choreography and Dudley did the music. That was the last production I did in Oxford itself". His Oxford experience not only gave Nettleford further academic training, but it also provided him with a wealth of artistic practice and experience that he brought back to his native Jamaica.
Career
Since 1941, Nettleford had been involved with the production of pantomimes and other theatrical works that served as the basis for his foundation of the National Dance Theater Company of Jamaica in 1961.
On his return to Jamaica, Nettleford resumed his involvement in a variety of artistic and academic pursuits. He used the National Dance Theater Company as a platform for establishing the Jamaica School of Dance, which later became part of the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts. He also resumed his association with the University of the West Indies where he continued his work as a resident tutor in continuing education.
Throughout the years, Nettleford has served in a wide array of positions at UWI ranging from resident tutor, lecturer, professor, director of Extra Mural Studies and of the School of Continuing Studies, deputy vice chancellor, and since 1998, vice chancellor of the University. He has developed academic expertise in the areas of labor, Caribbean history, Caribbean politics and social development, creative arts, culture and development, and Caribbean dance theater. He has authored seven books, including Roots and Rhythms: The Story of the Jamaican Dance Theater (1969), Manley and the New Jamaica: Selected Speeches and Writings, 7 938-1968 (1971), Caribbean Cultural Identity: The Case of Jamaica, an Essay in Cultural Dynamics (1979), and Inward Stretch Outward Reach: A Voice from the Caribbean (1992). He has also written dozens of articles and book chapters in his areas of expertise. Since 1967, he has been the editor of the journal Caribbean Quarterly.
Personality
To understand Nettleford's genius, talent, and appreciation for Jamaican arts and culture, it is important to understand the political and cultural environment of Jamaica during his formative years. Nettleford was profoundly affected by the strong cultural ferment prevalent in Jamaica at the time. Struggling to become an independent nation, the leaders of Jamaica emphasized the native cultural forms of the island as an attempt to differentiate themselves from the British motherland. Jamaica's graphic arts, music, literature, and theater were brought to the forefront of the public mind as an attempt not only to underscore their native values, but also as an effort to collect their unique Caribbean identity and present it to the world.
Nettleford has been described as a Renaissance man. He is equally comfortable delivering and writing an academic paper or dancing a lively Caribbean beat with his dance company. His artistic and academic endeavors are vast and cover many areas of the process of cultural production within Jamaica and the Caribbean. He has been a relentless advocate for Caribbean arts and culture. As an artistic producer, a recorder, and a cultural critic, Nettleford has been a leading figure working to preserve, promote, and value Jamaican and Caribbean cultural forms. His sense of vision and his erudition have garnered worldwide respect for his work and for the arts and cultures he supports. His dynamic understanding of culture moves him away from the binary and Afro-centric canons perpetuated by other cultural critics. He sees the Caribbean as being generative and inclusive. His writings, teaching, and artistic legacy reflect an open voice and a plurality that is seldom found among Caribbean cultural critics and producers.