ABSTRACT
On a dais sit several white, male, European scholars of a certain age. All morning the discussion has been of the influence of “La Cultura Latina” on the European world, on the modern world. One scholar sincerely and passionately argues for the return to Latin as the single language with which to communicate. It is time for the last speaker. He begins, his voice booms out over the room, rich and shocking because he is singing: “Don’t you want to have your freedom, don’t you want to have your freedom, don’t you want to have your freedom, children of the Lord.” The voice is that of dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones, the song, a “negro” spiritual, the rupture his voice makes both upends the scholarly tone of the conference and reasserts the presence of the “new world” into the largely European audience. 1
