Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity.

Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity Edited by Susanna Sloat. Gainesville, FL University Press of Florida. 2002. 400 pages. Cloth. $39.95

This volume grows on you--like an infections mambo that gradually compels the most prudish observer to succumb to the beats. And it delivers a surprisingly thorough education.

The essays, edited by Susanna Sloat, focus on the Caribbean Islands, beginning in Cuba and traveling down the arc of isles through Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Trinidad, and around to Curagao. In the first chapter, Brenda Dixon Gottschild and Nathaniel Hamilton Crowell, Jr. each address the African background of Caribbean dance and its European influences. Gabri Christa's piece, "Tambu: Afro-Curacao's Music and Dance of Resistance," is a particularly engaging study of the hip-grinding "forbidden dance." The final chapter, through essays by Veve A. Clark, Sloat, and Robert Farris Thompson, discusses the relationships between dance in the Caribbean and the United States. The reader gets the feeling of being on a tour, passing from guide to guide among the islands. A similar sense of touring through time, in a bumpier, less linear way, is conjured by the scope of the subject matter spanning the rich history of Caribbean culture.

Contributors include Rex Nettleford, Thomas Pinnock, Suki John, and Cynthia Oliver. While the essays represent the complex spectrum of Caribbean cultures, they do have a downside: If you like a particular style of essay, you won't find it consistently. On the other hand, if you glaze over while reading one, you can look forward to the next piece being completely different.

One might wish the book were graced with more pictures, especially considering the photogenic potential of the subject. But the vivid descriptions and revealing scholarship inspire the reader to go out and find a dance to watch in real life.--TAMARA JOHNSON