The curtains will close on 14th Caribbean Festival of the Arts (Carifesta XIV) this evening at the Savannah in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on the same stage that sees the closing of the famous carnival every year. This is the fourth time that this will happen in Trinidad and Tobago which has been the most willing Caribbean territory to play host to a festival that seems to be settling down following a sporadic and unsettled history.
That history goes back to various attempts to stage performances in the performing arts representing united regional effort. This, in a very vague way, reflects attempts at Caribbean unity at the political level, and both may be traced to the 1950s. It is significant that the University College of the West Indies was founded in 1948 when the thinking towards regional integration resulted in a permanent institution.
The first known event was recorded in 1952. “The staging of the first Caribbean Festival of Arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico… This event spurred some enthusiasm in the region for celebrating the excellence of Caribbean artistry.” (Efebo Wilkinson, “The Carifesta Story”, 2019). Other sources date this as 1951 and refer to it as the Caribbean Festival. They mention that “the Ivy Baxter Dance Group took four original pieces to the Caribbean Festival in Puerto Rico in 1951” (The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre).
The second known event was in London in 1953. Critic Bruce King writes of festival activities involving a number of leading luminaries in West Indian drama. This was centred around the staging of Black Jacobins by CLR James, Trinidadian historian, theorist, critic and playwright and included performers and directors from around the region.
The next reference to a regional effort was in 1958 and stated “The West Indies Festival of Arts was a celebration of Caribbean creative and performing arts. There were art exhibitions and performances by theatrical, dance and choral groups from many Caribbean territories. (The Trinidad Chronicle, March 27, 1958). There is not much more on that.
However, what is definite was a regional festival of a kind which was directly linked to the formation of the West Indian Federation in 1958. The University College of the West Indies Extra Mural Department was also involved. The official opening of the federation was in Port of Spain, Trinidad in 1960. Derek Walcott was commissioned to write a play for the occasion, and this resulted in the epic drama Drums and Colours. It was historical and was directed with much pageantry by Jamaican Noel Vaz, with a cross section of cast and production team from around the region.
After the collapse of the federation in 1962, the next step was a meeting of artists who held the Caribbean Writers and Artists Convention in Georgetown, Guyana in 1966, synonymous with this country’s independence. It was there that a permanent sustained festival was mooted. That conference began to outline plans for such an event, but nothing materialised.
However, under the patronage of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, a wide and varied gathering of writers, artists, musicians, dramatists et al, were invited back to Guyana by the government. Following an address by Burnham, the conference met for several days and ironed out the idea of a regional festival. The proceedings of this meeting were scrupulously documented by Jamaican novelist Andrew Salkey, who published them in his Georgetown Journal (1971). Out of those deliberations the first Carifesta was planned and hosted by the Guyana government in August 1972.
Very significantly, it was not limited to the Anglophone Caribbean, but included the Dutch, French and Spanish territories, so they were a part of the concept that defined the Caribbean and expressed its identity.
The idea was a Carifesta every four years, and the second was on target in Jamaica in 1976. But such was the early enthusiasm, that those targets were surpassed. It was only three years later that Cuba offered to host and did so in 1979. This was of political importance, because Fidel Castro was riding on the friendship of the major Caricom partners Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad, which were prepared to defy the blockade and isolation led by the USA. Following that, Barbados did not wait out the period, and hosted the festival only two years later in 1981.
After that flurry of three Carifestas in five years, the festival became marked by uncertainty, and was thereafter, very sporadic. Eleven years passed before it was held again, when Trinidad and Tobago hosted in 1992. There was a glimmer of hope when Jamaica offered to have it again, but that was washed away by Hurricane Gilbert. However, Trinidad’s willingness was still hot after only three years, and all were invited back to Port of Spain for Carifesta V in 1995.
This was followed by another long, uncertain wait then five years later, St Kitts and Nevis took up the challenge. Things looked much better after that – Suriname played host in 2003 and Trinidad was willing for the third time in 2006. When the Bahamas promised and failed, Guyana lost no time in replacing it, and Carifesta returned to its first home in 2008. But it faltered again as no other country came forward until after another 5 years, and it was Suriname again in 2013.
By 2003 it had been obvious that something needed fixing. Carifesta was a burden on host nations in terms of costs and administration. It had no business management and little guarantee of any real income and profits. The festival depended on nations volunteering to host it. Questions were being raised about its benefits and its attractiveness. These were what led to the close examination of its structure and procedures during the Carifesta Symposia in 2003 in Suriname. A task force was set up led by a consultant to find a new Carifesta model that would work more efficiently and actually earn money. The idea was to make it more profitable and remove the dependency on volunteers – rather than find it a burden, countries would be eager to bid to host it, and it would be more attractive to a world-wide audience. There would be artistic and tourism benefits and its economic potential would be unleashed.
Carifesta was reinvented under this new model. It was to be held every two years now (instead of 4), and countries would bid to host it. To remove years of uncertainty, the next host would be announced at the closing ceremony of each festival. There was to be a permanent Carifesta secretariat administering it and allowing for continuity. It would be a paying event, depending less on the generosity of a host nation and earning money from events.
The new model was handed over to Caricom by the task force and was approved at a Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) meeting of Caricom ministers. But when the next festival was held in 2006 in Trinidad, that nation’s government did not adopt the new model.
The frequency of the festivals improved – except for one gap between 2008 and 2013. In 2006, the Bahamas was announced as the next hosts and when that country cancelled in 2007, Guyana immediately volunteered, thus it still went on cue two years after Trinidad. It was obvious that the old problems had not been eliminated, since after Guyana in 2008, no one took it up again for five years; the Bahamas promised to host but faltered a second time.
Since 2013, however, it has been on target every two years – Haiti in 2015, Barbados in 2017, and Trinidad and Tobago in 2019. The host for 2021 will be announced this evening.
But none of the governments fully embraced the new model. They were all loath to have full paying events and did not want their citizens to have to buy tickets to shows. They preferred their own plans over many of the prescriptions of the new model, despite having approved them at COHSOD.
For a change, however, Trinidad has taken on a number of the new proposals this time. Events are still free except the mega concert of soca and dancehall stars. There was no appreciable sign of definite improvement as a result of this, and the ticketing system for the free shows remains a headache. Audiences for events are generally larger in numbers than previous years, except for the Grand Market which was far more bustling and thriving with teeming crowds in Barbados in 2017.
In keeping with the new model, though, all space in the Grand Market, located in the Savannah, is rented, and countries pay fees even for their standard country exhibition space.
This means that there is not enough change adopted to allow an analysis. In many ways, Carifesta is still to realise its full potential and its vision. How does the remodelled arts festival work? When the curtains close at the Port of Spain Savannah this evening we still will not know.
