- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Donald Warner Henderson
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Donald Warner Henderson, credited with keeping a globally recognized, slavery-era dancing drama alive, died Sunday. He was 79.
Warner died in the Dominican Republic after a long battle with liver cancer, said Xiomara Perez of the Ministry of Culture.
Warner was the director of a dancing drama known as "Cocolo," a once-pejorative term that described migrant workers of British sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic.
"Cocolo" incorporates African music, Biblical and medieval legends, Christmas caroling and scenes such as "David and Goliath" and "Cowboys and Indians," according to U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, which proclaimed it an Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005.
The dancing drama tradition began among slave descendants who arrived in the Caribbean country in the mid-1800s to work in sugarcane fields. The majority of them now live in San Pedro de Macoris, just east of the capital of Santo Domingo.
Troupes usually perform around Christmas and local holidays.
