(Continued from last week)
As we continue to focus on Carifesta XII which was held in Port au Prince, Haiti, from August 21-30 and closed its curtains exactly one week ago, we find ourselves still confronting the persistent and overriding significance of Haiti as a venue for this Caribbean festival. It was, after all, the second non-English speaking territory to host it. But while there were a few similarities, including the wide popularisation of the festival, the experience was quite different from that of Suriname.
Theatre/art is predominantly defined by its audience, and the audience was one of the most prominent factors in Carifesta XII. It was predominantly Haitian, as it was mostly a very large popular audience. What was quite atypical of Carifesta, was that there was a real language issue – but more a language issue than a language problem. This was not the case in Suriname. Haiti is more a patois speaking country than it is a nation of standard French. Its first language