Caribbean Island Art

What visitor to the Caribbean has not been entranced by the beauty and spirit of its tropical islands? In Caribbean Style, more than 600 spectacular full-color photographs and an illuminating text re-create the houses, gardens, and lifestyle of this enchanting region. A trendsetting book that combines travel and design, Caribbean Style offers a previously unseen view of the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Bartelemy, Antigua, Nevis, Montserrat, Barbados, Haiti, and Jamaica. The book includes information on island vegetation and colors, plantation houses, town houses, popular houses, contemporary houses, and gardens. In addition, the Architectural Notebook provides plans and information on different types of houses on the various islands. These pages take you from plantation manor houses with gracious verandahs that catch the mild, cooling winds to brightly painted native dwellings adorned with imaginative wood trim; from colonial plantation gardens with rows of majestic palm trees and winding water canals left from earlier days to simple town-house gardens with bright patches of bougainvilleas. Caribbean Style explodes with an intense profusion of images and colors. With this vivid portrait of the Caribbean, you will almost feel the soft breezes, inhale the fragrance of tropical flowers, and luxuriate in the warmth of the sun.

Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zouk is an unprecedented overview of the dances from each of this region's major islands and the complex, fused, and layered cultures that have given birth to them. The authors in this collection, from distinguished cultural leaders to highly innovative choreographers, reveal how dance shapes personal, communal, and national identity. Their essays also show how Caribbean rhythms, dances, fragments of movement, and even attitudes toward movement reach beyond the islands and through the extensive West Indian diaspora communities in North America, Latin America, and Europe to be embraced by the world at large. A range of approaches, from the anthropological to the literary and from the practical to the creative, allows for a thorough exploration of these dances in the distinct yet interrelated contexts of social history, tradition/ritual, and performance. Connections are made among a fascinating array of dances, both familiar and little known, from culturally based to newly created performance pieces. Particular emphasis is placed on the African contribution in making Caribbean dance distinctive. An extensive glossary of terms and more than 30 illustrations round out the book to make it the most complete resource on Caribbean dance to date.