Dominican cultural activist and artist Alwin Bully, died on March 10th in his home island of Dominica, after several years battling debilitating Parkinson’s. He was born November 23rd 1948. He was well-known in Saint Lucia in theatre and literature circles. He had also been very involved for many years in the preservation and development of Dominican kwéyòl culture and language. He was a friend and supporter of the work of the Msgr Patrick Anthony Folk Research Centre. The seventies in the Caribbean were a time of great change and radical thinking. Leaders were Bob Marley and the Rastafari communities, Walter Rodney, Michael Manley, the new musics of reggae, cadence-lypso, soca, zouk; interest grew in “nation-languages” (Caribbean local vernaculars, kwéyòl), the literary achievements of Walcott and Brathwaite, theatre work of Jamaican Denis Scott and Trinidadian Rawle Gibbons and others and so much else. The Folk Research Centre was born in those years. Artists and cultural leaders like Alwin Bully were shaped by many of these influences and went on to create their own arts and cultural works reflecting those years.
Alwin was quickly recognized in Dominica and within the Caribbean as one of the new “renaissance” artists – he was an actor, dancer, playwright, director, painter, sculptor, carnival designer, film actor and director – doing all excellently. His curriculum vitae is an impressive record of a life dedicated to the arts, cultural administration and education. He has been an inspiration to several generations of Caribbean theatre persons. He has at least 16 plays to his credit. His early education began at the Dominica Grammar School and St. Mary’s Academy. He graduated from the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies with a BA, General Honours in 1972. UWI awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 2011. He co-founded several Dominican arts and cultural organisations. While a student at Cave Hill, he co-founded the Barbados National Theatre Workshop. He directed and acted in theatre there (with John Robert Lee his friend,) taught workshops, and was one of the most influential Caribbean theatre people in Barbados during the early seventies. Under the leadership of doyenne Daphne Joseph-Hackett, he traveled as an actor with the Barbados Theatre Workshop to several islands, including Saint Lucia.
Back home in 1972, Alwin founded the People’s Action Theatre and was Artistic Director from 1972-1987. The group’s work marked some of the most productive years in Dominican theatre. They traveled to several islands with his plays, including Saint Lucia. Among his now classic Dominican dramas are Good Morning Miss Millie (1968), Streak (1976), The Ruler (1976), The Nite Box (1976), Pio-Pio (1978). Alongside his involvement in the arts, he became Acting Principal of the Dominican Grammar School. He later moved on to establish the Department of Culture and became its first Director in 1978. In 1978 he designed the distinctive Dominica national flag. His contribution to Caribbean theatre and cultural development is highly respected. He was President of the Caribbean Theatre Information Exchange. In 1987, he moved to Jamaica to work at UNESCO as Senior Programme Specialist and later the Caribbean Culture Advisor. There he managed the production of the substantial and ground-breaking six-volume History of the Caribbean. These covered the Indigenous societies to the 20th century Caribbean.
In Jamaica, Alwin directed several successful award-winning theatre productions, including many of Fr. Richard Ho Lung’s popular annual musical dramas. In 2008 he returned to Dominica as Cultural Advisor to the Minister of Culture and continued his work in theatre and cultural administration. He wrote and directed films, including his Oseyi and the Masqueraders in 2017. The Cocoa Dancer and other stories was published by Papillote Press in 2021. A number of his plays have been anthologized. He received the prestigious national Sisserou Award from the Government of Dominica in 1985.
The Msgr Patrick Anthony Folk Research Centre mourns with the family and friends of Alwin Bully, and with the citizens of Dominica for whom his passing is a great loss.