As the Tenth Caribbean Festival of the Arts gets into full stride, the public awareness campaign in Guyana seems to have already begun to show some positive returns. Such a campaign is closely tied to a larger purpose of public gain and national benefit beyond the ten days of performances and exhibitions.
What is helping to make an impact is a sustained Pre-Carifesta programme which has been integrated with the several preparations for the actual event. Guyana has already gained a number of pieces of public art, including the most impressive of them, the three-part mural Universal Woman by George Simon on the theme of river spirits. That triptych is joined by another mural done by Simon and his University of Guyana students in the Umana Yana and an item of traditional Amerindian art by Telford Taylor outside the Walter Roth Museum. Yet another item of public art is also part of the larger youth project, viz, the child art project under which a mural painted by children occupies some 400 metres of the Georgetown seawall.
Closely attached to all those factors is a project that has been among the most ambitious and the most satisfying so far. The Carifesta Training Programme in Technical Theatre was first constructed to train a team of persons to work in Carifesta. Several venues are needed to host the many Carifesta performances by visiting delegations and local groups. They need stage management, light, sound, front-of-house and other technical assistance at each venue, and the original project was to train a corps of persons to provide this. However, Dr Paloma Mohamed designed a large, comprehensive programme to train some 800 persons in the wide range of theatre skills needed to support a production.
This not only provides teams to work in Carifesta, but will also leave hundreds of persons with some knowledge of the theatre and the ability to stage productions. They would then be able to carry on this work in several far-flung areas of Guyana. The further interesting social dimension to the project is that it targeted youth from several depressed or challenged areas, whose new interest in the arts has the capacity to uplift and enhance those areas while providing opportunities for those trained.
The most exciting factor in all this is that two weekends ago more than 700 of these staged 12 dramatic productions at the Cultural Centre. These were managed, designed, directed and performed by the students themselves. The result was two days of fulfilling theatre exhibiting the rewards of obvious hard work and a number of infinitely encouraging and sometimes first-class theatre. Despite several obvious flaws, the most important achievement was that they demonstrated an impressive degree of commitment and keen interest.
Each production was one act of a major play. Four plays and 12 productions were performed:
The Legend of the Silk Cotton Tree, a new play, Act 2 directed by Tivia Collins, Rhonda Hamilton and Avinand Rampersaud
Legend of the Silk Cotton Tree Act One directed by Donny Holder and Shawn Singh
Makantali Act 2 directed by Shonette Waterman, Narda Mohamed and Jean Kingston
Makantali Act 1 directed by Anjani Ramroop, Avery Grant and Jonothan Khadaroo
Makantali Act 3 directed by Savannah-Re Hackett, Nicola Butts and Alecia Campbell
Makantali Act 4 by Joseph Connelly, Surujbali Persaud and Renatta Ifill
For Love of Aidana Soraya Act 1 directed by Krishana Elliot and Crystal Douglas
For Love of Aidana Soraya Act 2 by Juneann Bowman, Mitzi Comacho, Reycia Nedd and Carlos Drakes
For Love of Aidana Soraya Act 3 directed by Leroy Marshall, Dennis Scott, Marissa Massiah and Kenesha Young
Moon on a Rainbow Shawl Act 1 directed by Criselle Alleyne, Ivan Bentham, Kawal Couchman and Wanda Stoby
Moon on a Rainbow Shawl Act 2 directed by Mary Adams, Clint Hamilton and Beverley Bobb
Moon on a Rainbow Shawl Act 3 directed by Yolanda Ward, Throfall Allen, Trevon Graham and Shameza David
Those apprentices were covered in glory, but within Carifesta itself there are exhibitions of the work of performers who belong at the other end of the spectrum, including some of the leading artists in the Caribbean.
The Carifesta Symposia open today at 5 pm with the appearance of the most celebrated of them all, poet-playwright and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. Walcott is the Distinguished Guest in the Grand Opening Symposium which is designed to set the week’s series off with the over-arching theme Caribbean Culture at the Crossroads: Seeking the Past, Living the Present, Exploring the Future. There will be a Distinguished Panel of foremost writers and critics; David Dabydeen (Guyanese poet, novelist, critic), Edward Baugh (Jamaican poet, critic), Cynthia McLeod (Surinamese writer), Ian McDonald (Guyanese poet, novelist), and Ken Ramchand (Trinidadian critic).
Another of the most acclaimed artists and academics of the Caribbean is also the Distinguished Guest Speaker in the closing Symposium on Friday August 29 at 10 am. Rex Nettleford, Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of UWI, the leading intellectual in Cultural Studies and Artistic Director of the Caribbean’s most celebrated dance company, the NDTC of Jamaica, will be the lead speaker on the theme: Expressions of the Mind: The Role of Ideas in the Making of a Caribbean Nation. The panelists will be Tony Martin, Kim Johnson and Victor Ramraj.
The other Symposia are:
Monday Aug. 25, 10 am. Mekkin Change: Art and Artists in the Caribbean
1 pm Indigenous Performance Traditions
Tuesday Aug. 26 10 am Are We There Yet? Refining and Redefining Our Cultural Industries
1 pm Caribbean Cultural Diplomacy
Wednesday Aug. 27 10 am Slavery: the Curacao Experience (public lecture)
Thursday Aug. 28 10 am Walk with Me, Talk with Me: Journeys in the Caribbean Imagination
1 pm The Latin American Voice in Caribbean Culture
Other interesting highlights are to be found in the extremely impressive programme of literary readings, book launchings and book exhibitions. These include a number of high-powered names alongside some of Guyana’s locally based emerging writers.
The highly decorated David Dabydeen is scheduled to present his latest novel, Molly and the Muslim Stick . Dabydeen is also the series editor of the Guyana Classics and the schedule indicates that Number One in that series, The Discoverie of Guiana by Sir Walter Raleigh, is also to be launched. The ‘Festival of Words’ series also lists an appearance by another of Guyana’s leading prize-winning novelists, Pauline Melville, one of the Caribbean’s and Barbados’ most established novelists, Austin Clarke, the highly acclaimed fiction writer and playwright Earl Lovelace.
The book launchings also include Themes in African Guyanese History by James Rose, Winston McGowan and David Granger; Ian McDonald’s Selected Poems; East of Centre by Elly Niland; The Hangman’s Game by Karen King-Aribisala, the Guyanese Commonwealth Prize Africa Region winner based in Nigeria; Frank Thomasson’s A History of Theatre in Guyana 1800-2000; the resuscitation of the famous Bim, one of the foundation literary journals of the Caribbean; and a Caribbean Anthology of Poems for Carifesta X compiled by Petamber Persaud.
It is a busy and rich programme of literature which also includes Guyana Prize winners Ruel Johnson, who will launch Fictions, and poet Berkley Semple. Local writers Roopnandan Singh, Bobby Fernandes and Donald Trotman also have new books to launch. The programme runs every day until Saturday, August 30.
