It premiered to rave reviews at Carifesta in Barbados last year, played in Jamaica in April of this year, and this weekend Quilt Performing Arts Company is remounting its work ReAshore’d at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts at The University of the West Indies, Mona.

The production takes a look at the transatlantic trade in enslave Africans from a different perspective through this dynamic theatre ensemble, which utilises transformative theatre to bring across its message.

Quilt was founded nine years ago by Rayon McLean, a past student of Glenmuir High School, where he was active in the school’s choir and participated in speech and drama. He would later become a member of the Jamaica Youth Theatre created by the late Aston Cooke. He recently returned to the island after completed post-graduate studies in applied theatre at Goldsmiths, University of London.

McLean explained that this production examines this critical piece of Caribbean history through Yoruba cosmology.

“We utilise a lot of Yoruba gods, music, and orishas to tell this story. It’s not like a regular viewpoint of the middle passage, but in the usual Quilt style we have used this different means to storytell, using a strong ensemble of actors as well bodies, sounds and poly rhythms,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

This weekend’s performance is also being used to sharpen the production and get it stage-ready as it will again be part of Jamaica’s contingent to Carifesta in Trinidad from August 19-22. McLean explained that this is also part of the constant work by the company to improve its output.

“We always workshop out work. We never just do a play once and that’s it. After Barbados, even though it was so loved I realised there was so much more I could do with this work, so I wrote more scenes and deleted a few… I have been working it over for the past three years, so now we are at a place where we are feeling like we can now put it to the Jamaican theatre community. We did it here in April and it was well-received, but we saw the gaps and set about working on them. One of the things is that I am fortunate to have persons in Quilt who not just act at a high level, but we also have persons who are musically inclined and people who move well, so it’s really a blessing to have all this talent in one space.”

ReAshore’d features the acting talents a 30-member cast, which includes past Miss Jamaica contestant and medical doctor Sanneta Myrie, Actor Boy Award winner Desmond Dennis, as well as guest performers Roni Chambers and Paul Issa.