Linda Parris-Bailey’s Creative Capital project, Yankee Bajan, is a performance work exploring memory, identity, and the search for safety within the African Diaspora. 

Developed in a unique collaboration between Barbadian artists and Barbadian descendants in the US, Yankee Bajan is a play with music written by Linda Parris-Bailey and directed by Dahlak Brathwaite, that follows a Black American family, responding to the rise in racial violence, by choosing to repatriate to their ancestral home in Barbados. Rhythmic Bajan music, by composer/music director H. Stefan Walcott, soul stirring songs, vivid dreamscapes by media/set designer Russell Watson, and real challenges of identity and cultural conflict engage the audience in the family’s journey to find home.  

“My grandparents, immigrants from Barbados, left me with a curiosity about their journey to America. I wanted to explore a reverse migration and a new identity for a family of Black Americans in search of the modern return—or Sankofa,” says Parris-Bailey.

At once deeply personal and broadly resonant, Yankee Bajan asks: What is home, and where do we find it?