I Emote on Seeing Weston Haughton in Half-Way-Tree

 On Seeing Weston Haughton in Half-Way-Tree

Weston Haughton at 50th birthday of Karen Smith.
Gleaner Photo

The moment he strode into the frame of my windshield, I recognized whose smooth stride was adding a touch of sophistication to the rush of single minded humans moving in linear fashion on the promenade outside of JN, Half-Way-Tree. I looked for the camera crew - because surely this was a fashion out take - but it wasn't. 

"Nor knew how fiercely spoke his body then Of ancient wealth and savage regal men";  I saw him stride seven times, each one holding a tempo, charging a magnetism that pulls women into his aura, the WesVerse that allows each to forge and proof herself into the person that she wants to become.

As a professional disco dancer and catwalk model, he dazzled international audiences, yet did not outshine his partners, because being on the arm of a willing woman is reason enough to enjoy a dance, or a walk.

Weston Haughton danced to help raise money for schools and churches - Ardenne High School, St Andrew Parish Church, St Luke Cross Roads and many others. As model, emcee, choreographer, each event was an opportunity to display conventional good taste with excitement. 

Doyennes of fashion and of fundraising brought him in to perform, and then to help to plan. The dancer, the gentleman, the man who made the women in the room feel good about being themselves. 

The newspapers displayed photographs of well-known women, but for the shows that he helped to produce, such as the AJ Fashion Follies with Carrole Guntley, the attendees felt themselves as a part of the catwalk company, such is the augmentation added by the WesVerse. Brides relied on him not just for his glamour expertise, but because they wanted the lead up to their fabulous wedding day to be filled with love and good memories. 

“Do not let makeup hide your natural attributes” he would urge women and girls, and for Miss Jamaica Fashion Model Althea Laing he completed her first modelling application form himself. As Ne-Yo sings, "Girl let me love you, cause I will love you, until you learn to love yourself."

As Half-Way-Tree hummed, I saw seven steps, and with each one he stamped his authority: performer, organizer, nurturer of talent, arbiter of good taste...then he was out of my frame until he appeared in the wing mirror. I could catch maybe three more steps, what would those define?

The left foot, heel to toe: dependability to deliver surprise no matter how many times he choreographed a show before. Each new batch of women in a pageant worked with him creatively and he defended them as a national resource for Jamaica. He helped them to discover their charm and how to showcase it in their faces; to present poised bodies for effect; to take command of their ambition and direct it. His runway flock defined style of the 80s and 90s: Cathi Levy, Jacqui Tyson, Debbie Whittingham, Joan McDonald, Tania McDonald, Bev Corke, Audrey Burgess Barrakat, Michelle Moodie, Sophia Max Brown and many more. The business around them was the muse for Jamaica's fashion academy.  

The right foot: haute social culture: the Embassy for Venezuela entrusted him to execute the bicentennial  of their founder Simon Bolivar that also coincided with Jamaica 21. He helped to please thousands in Disco Inferno for his coordination of the annual Grand Fashion Gala during the early years of the City of Montego Bay. With partner - another commanding lady with ambition - playwright Dahlia Harris, they have respectfully ushered in a new era for the Miss Jamaica World competition. In this new role, the master worked his arts, bringing out the best in Toni-Ann Singh who dazzled the world with her spiritual take on beauty, becoming Miss World 2019.

The seventh step, the one before he disappeared from my view that afternoon had a fitting set for a finale. The backdrop props were smoked glass and steel separated by digital advertising boards and cylindrical towers of streetlights. A chorus line of yellow buses moved in regulated order while taxis performed solo improvisations from lane to lane and slipped through amber and red lights. 

Amber and mauve bougainvillea have permanent box seats in that city theatre and in that moment, they and I celebrated him in the spotlight of the afternoon sun. I think that he does his work from the point of view of patriot, for the love of contributing to his country. His shows align themselves to a sweeter cause: burnishing the reputation of a city, raising money for the vulnerable, encouraging women and girls to shape themselves to be the stars that they are, for the purposes of goodness and of grace.