Trinidad and Tobago’s ‘first lady of dance’ Julia Edwards, 84, died on Wednesday in San Diego, USA. Edwards suffered with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and, bed ridden for the past few years, died peacefully at home with her daughter Janice at her bedside when she passed.
Musician Earl Edwards, assumed to be most be to be Edwards son, said on Thursday: “Julia is actually my aunt as I grew up with her from the age of three. She was my father’s sister. Because of her dance group I became interested in music and used to drum for the group. As I grew older I joined Rockerfellas, then Sound Revolution.
“She used to really encourage me with my music and, for all the tours to North America, Europe, and Japan, it was Julia’s daughter Janice and myself who would be in charge of the contingent. Her contribution to local dance is invaluable.”
The recipient of the Humming Bird Medal Gold (for Culture), Edwards began dancing at the age of 15, in 1948, with Boscoe Holder’s dance troupe, introduced to Holder by her brother Irwin. When Holder left to pursue his career in England, she continued dancing with the troupe after his brother, Geoffrey Holder, took over its leadership. Eventually, Geoffrey Holder also left Trinidad in 1953 to pursue his career and Edwards started choreographing for her own dance troupe, the Julia Edwards Dance Group.
Through the years, Edwards has raised outstanding dancers like Andre Ettienne, Bill Trotman, Janice Peters, Gloria Boodoo, Marilyn Alfonso, Sybil Hope, Juanita Henry, Cheryl and Sonny Salina, Earlin Williams, Merle Grant, Junior Seyon, Arnold Henry, Earlene Hunte and Gail Edinborough.
Edwards was Charmaine Grant’s tutor and choreographer, and of the dance diva she said: “I danced with Julia for about 40 years, from childhood. Back then she had a class for children and that was the start of my dancing career, tutored first by Gloria Boodoo, then by Marilyn Cumberbatch.
“I still think that Julia was the best folk choreographer that God ever created and existed. She was so simple, a truly humble woman. She was born with the gift of dance, never studying dance at any university or institution. Julia was dance and she would just come up with all these amazing routines that would astound people locally and globally.
“We would be doing shows and she would never be in the forefront. But, in her tutoring she was a stern disciplinarian and teacher. Julia is like my second mother because when we toured Japan I lived with her for a year that we spent there. At that time I was a teen, just 17. She took me under her wing, mentoring, monitoring, chaperoning and giving us young girls advice on life.
“Julia always said that her group was not a company but a family and she stuck to the name Julia Edwards Dance Troupe. She was insistent on that. There were so many things I loved and admired about Julia. For instance none of her dance items were long as she always said she didn’t want people to get fed up looking at a dance item. She believed that once the audience saw the costumes and the performance, and enjoyed the dance, they got their money’s worth.
Edwards invented the flaming limbo in 1959, first performing it at the opening of Queen’s Hall, and Grant recalled: “Julia was innovative and it she who started the flaming limbo. She experimented with many methods to get that fire on the limbo bar, burning in such a way that it would not endanger the dancer. She also created the human limbo, a routine she came up with on returning from a tour to Dakar, Africa. Instead of using the bar we used human bodies, utilising different lifts. I remember her saying that we were like chemists in those days, mixing methylated spirits and kerosene and all kinds of flammable liquids, keeping in mind to find something that would not emit too much smoke. I would say that Julia Edwards was ahead of her time in dance.
“A lot of dance choreography you would see in Best Village through the years was Julia’s. Dancers simply used her techniques. Julia was insistent that the national dance of T&T should be the limbo. She said the Bele and Pique were of French influence, the Joropo was Spanish, but the limbo was indigenous to Trinidad.
“People don’t know that the limbo is a spiritual dance that was first performed at wakes, but in reverse to what it evolved into. I remember Julia telling us that people would begin with the lowest bar while saying the Rosary and continue raising it to symbolise the spirit of the deceased rising to heaven. In the beginning the dancers didn’t wear skimpy costumes like today but would negotiate beneath the bar in floor length dresses.”
Another of Edwards’ dancers, T&T Limbo Queen Nydia Byron, won multiple national limbo championships, inspired by Edwards’ principal male dancer Sonny Salina. A member of Edwards’ dance troupe in the 70s, she said: “Auntie Julia was a real open hearted, fun-loving person. She opened her company to anyone who was interested in dance and wanted to join and never made anyone feel lesser than the other. The company was very popular and performed regularly at Hilton Poolside on a Wednesday night at its Trinidad Night shows. Japan was her stomping ground as the company toured there a lot.”
Edwards journey in dance took her across the globe as well as to the silver screen. While performing the limbo at Miramar Nightclub on South Quay, Port-of-Spain, her dancers were recruited to appear in the 1957 American movie Fire Down Below. She also appeared on American TV on the critically acclaimed Ed Sullivan Show.
The Julia Edwards Dance Troupe has appeared on various stages throughout the USA, including the Radio City Music Hall in New York, USA. The group also performed in other countries such as Haiti, India, Mexico, Senegal, Venezuela, Africa and Yugoslavia. Although she continued to choreograph into the early 2000s, she stopped dancing regularly with her group in 1972.
In a Guardian feature written by the late Aubrey Adams and published in 1985, Edwards is quoted as saying: “I just loved to dance – non-stop. It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
Edwards’ nephew said that funeral arrangements are currently being made and will be announced shortly.