#mediagiant

The National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) regrets the passing of Barbara Gloudon, OD, OJ, IOJ, cultural and media giant and close friend of the Company. A noted guardian of Jamaica’s culture, Gloudon shared a close relationship with Prof. Rex Nettleford as they combined their creative imagination to represent the culture of the Jamaican people through the performing arts, most notably the Little Theatre Movement (LTM) Pantomime for which Nettleford choreographed in the early years and the NDTC.

In 1981 Barbara Gloudon formally took over the NDTC’s public relations. No stranger to the nation’s artistic ambitions following independence, Gloudon with the support of her mentor Theodore Sealy, then editor of The Daily Gleaner, had made the efforts to examine seriously the cultural expressions of the new Jamaica - music, dance, art, and theatre. The National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) was one of her beats, and she covered their tours to Stratford, Ontario (1963), Atlanta (1969) and Georgetown, Guyana (1972). Supportive of the Company’s essays in dance but equally concerned about its future, Gloudon has been careful to project an accurate image of the Company, mindful of her obligations to address a younger generation sometimes unfamiliar with its history. With a deep knowledge of Jamaican life and Caribbean traditions, sensitivity toward the human condition, and an appreciation of the need for cultural self-definition, along with her impeccable taste, Gloudon’s approach is invested with original ideas about communicating the artistic goals of the Company as well as other aesthetic concerns of the nation.