Bruckins, also spelled brukins, is a Jamaican dance performed primarily to celebrate Emancipation Day.

A dance, whose music has both European and African elements, Bruckins is a "stately, dipping-gliding" dance, and may be derived from the Pavane.[1]

Bruckins is accompanied by an elaborate pageant, in which participants dress as European royalty and/or members of the royal court (courtiers, pages, soldiers, etc.).

Sabine Sörgel has said that the first Bruckins was celebrated in 1834, after the formal abolition of slavery;[2] however, Olive Lewin states that the first Bruckins was only in 1839, after the elimination of the "apprenticeship" system.[3]

References

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  1. ^ History Notes: Information on Jamaica's Culture at the Jamaica (retrieved 13 February, 2012
  2. ^ [Dancing postcolonialism: the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica], by Sabine Sörgel; published by Transcript Verlag; 2007, page 141, via Google Books
  3. ^ Rock It Come Over: the folk music of Jamaica, with special reference to Kumina and the work of Mrs. Imogene "Queenie" Kennedy, by Olive Lewis; published by University of the West Indies Press, 2000; via Google Books
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