Photo Credit: Maria Mafla

Maypole is a folk dance once common in Grenada, deriving from the European celebration commemorating spring rites and fertility and brought here in the late 19th century. Eight dancers, both males and females, each holding a multi-coloured ribbon attached to the top of a bamboo pole, weave in and out of each other, plaiting the ribbons in a circular pattern along the pole to create designs like a “spider’s web,” “ladder,” or “basket.” Folk music, calypso and other songs can accompany the dancers. The costume for men is a pants, petticoat and ‘kang kang’ while the women wore a short skirt with a polly underneath and a colourful top.This dance was also once popular at Carnival but is rarely seen today. The maypole is still danced in Grenada, with its stronghold in Windsor Forest, St. David, and Carriacou during May and goes up to Carnival in Grenada (August).

Between April and September 2022, the Proud of my Heritage – ICH fieldwork teams interviewed several ICH-Maypole bearers. Lady Cheryl Antoine, one of the elder icons and ICH-bearer of Maypole in Pomme Rose, St. David, Grenada, was able to transmit to the students of St. Joseph Roman Catholic School the Maypole dancing, performing and singing. Other ICH-bearers were visited in Grenada and Carriacou as Reginald Brizan, June Paul, Marilyn Thompson, Tyrelle Paul and Olive Paul, Gary Antoine & Arlene Joseph.

Most of these cultural practitioners manifested their concern to the continued enactment and transmission of this element as the lack of opportunity and financial resources to showcase and transmit it to the general public, including younger generations. 

If you wish to support further Maypole initiatives and/or any Living Heritage element, kindly contact us at admin@grenadanationaltrust.org and/or HeritageGrenada@gmail.com 

Photo Credit: Maria Mafla