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Showing posts with label UNESCO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UNESCO. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Friday, December 17, 2021
Bhojpuri Wedding folk traditions inscribed on UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List
Bhojpuri wedding folk songs now on UNESCO Heritage List
The wedding folk songs carried by indentured immigrant labourers
from India during British colonialism now find a place on the UNESCO
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The tradition was approved this month at the meeting of the
intergovernmental committee on intangible cultural heritage through an
application by Mauritius for the Bhojpuri songs and the accompanying ritual,
prayers, songs, music and dance of the Hindu Wedding Ceremony, Vivaah Samskara.
The songs, music and accompanying dances are known as Geet Gawai in Mauritius.
Similar traditions are practiced across the Indian diaspora. These are known as Lawa or Matikor in the
Caribbean with widespread practice in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname,
and the associated Caribbean diasporas in North America, Canada and Europe. The
practices, transposed from India through mass movement of bonded labour in the
19th century, include song, dance, music, cuisine, rituals and
communal engagement in the wedding cereomny
In the nomination submission, Mauritius noted: “Geet-Gawai is a
pre-wedding ceremony that combines rituals, prayer, songs, music and dance. It
is performed mainly by Bhojpuri-speaking communities in Mauritius who have
Indian descent. The traditional practice takes place at the home of the bride
or groom and involves female family members and neighbours. It begins with five
married women sorting items (turmeric, rice, grass and money) in a piece of
cloth while other participants sing songs that honour Hindu gods and goddesses.
After the site has been sanctified, the mother of the bride or groom and a
drummer honour musical instruments to be played during the ceremony, such as
the dholak (a two-headed drum). Uplifting songs are then performed and everyone
joins in and dances. Geet-Gawai is an expression of community identity and
collective cultural memory. The practice also provides participants with a
sense of pride and contributes to greater social cohesion, and breaking class
and caste barriers. Knowledge about the practice and its associated skills are
transmitted from older to younger generations on an informal and formal basis.
This is done via observation and participation by families, semi-formal
teaching houses, community centres, and academies. Nowdays, the practice of
Geet-Gawai extends to public performances and men also participate.
Last April, the UNESCO Executive Board approved a new
international indentured Indian
immigrant labour route initiative, piloted by Mauritius and unanimously supported
by all our executive board members.
Hindu Wedding traditions transposed, adapted and evolution from
India to the Caribbean are explored in Finding a Place, and LiTTscapes –
Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago. Finding a Place locates the
role of these practices in the oral traditions that fed the evolution of a
literary and journalistic sensibility while adapting to a new society while
LiTTscapes present representations of the practices and rituals in fictional
literature.
Dr Kris Rampersad is a UNESCO certified heritage expert and has
served as Chair of the UNESCO Education Commission; co-chair of UNESCO
Executive Board Programme and External Relations Commission, and co-chair of
the Consultative Body of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intangible Cultural
Heritage as an independent cultural heritage expert.
Related Links
|
Trinidad and Tobago
key to understanding migrations, UNESCO told. |
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Treating with Columbus and the Colonial Legacy of Heritage Trauma
Dear Mayor, and noble and other honourable citizens of the colourless world
I see there is a call for suggestions on how to treat with the colonial legacy and monuments - which must be close to the millionth such call to which I have responded. But now aware that there will be no action along the lines that I have used, tried and tested with other similarly trauma-inflicted communities of our region, I am not even tempted to point out that most times I feel like I have been talking to stone or that we only reaping the whirlwind that will continue to gather strength as we add fury to savagery, I propose the following as a preliminary list for your immediate action to assuage the bloodthirsty masses. I am sure these would meet with nods and applause of approval from noted historians, educators, leaders, opinion leaders and the like from whom you seek counsel. This list is to exorcise the ghosts roaming Port of Spain, while I compile the much larger list for exorcism across the country, and beyond, Dear Mayor. I come, you see, Mr Mayor, to not praise, but bury Columbus, along with the colonial legacy embedded in our psyche, landscapes and institutions and monuments of memory.
More at: https://krisrampersad.com/exorcising-historical-trauma-black-white-of-monuments-memory/
Related: https://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2017/07/my-discoverie-columbus-lost-and-found.html
I see there is a call for suggestions on how to treat with the colonial legacy and monuments - which must be close to the millionth such call to which I have responded. But now aware that there will be no action along the lines that I have used, tried and tested with other similarly trauma-inflicted communities of our region, I am not even tempted to point out that most times I feel like I have been talking to stone or that we only reaping the whirlwind that will continue to gather strength as we add fury to savagery, I propose the following as a preliminary list for your immediate action to assuage the bloodthirsty masses. I am sure these would meet with nods and applause of approval from noted historians, educators, leaders, opinion leaders and the like from whom you seek counsel. This list is to exorcise the ghosts roaming Port of Spain, while I compile the much larger list for exorcism across the country, and beyond, Dear Mayor. I come, you see, Mr Mayor, to not praise, but bury Columbus, along with the colonial legacy embedded in our psyche, landscapes and institutions and monuments of memory.
More at: https://krisrampersad.com/exorcising-historical-trauma-black-white-of-monuments-memory/
Related: https://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2017/07/my-discoverie-columbus-lost-and-found.html
Saturday, May 30, 2020
The Learning Revolution: MultipleChoice in a MultiCultural Place 1845-20...
MultipleChoice navigates through ethnic & religious dissension to draw readers into layers of the learning fabric & intricately interwoven diverse tracks of knowledge transmission embedded in festivals, rituals, beliefs, languages & lifestyles embroidered on a shared educational, cultural & ecological tapestry. From these Dr Rampersad draws significant lessons for societies newly challenged by multiculturalism.This unfolds from the canvas of traumas and triumphs of settlement, adaptation & accommodation that faced post-colonial societies of Latin America and the Caribbean. It shifts the focus from lament to praise song in the integration of traditional learning systems into new ones, evolving to meet the challenges of the 21st century. History, heritage & legacies lace research into a fine filigree of oral storytelling & social lore on how the experiences from colonisation may inform the emergence from the pandemic as stronger more resilient societies through technology-driven learning processes & systems that value multicultural traditions. More at www.krisrampersad.com. Subscribe for texts, tools, templates and talks.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Bridging the Distance in Social Distancing
outh Elderly Post Pandemic Planet Resistance Project: With COVID-19 social distancing, gaps between generations expands as elders become high risk group. GloCal redress actions bridging intergenerational divide.
The new COVID-19 threat is not just a health pandemic but a socio-cultural, economic and political one as well. It is upturning the way of life of the world, leaving many sectors grasping for foundation.
Futuring it may mean that many communities may have to turn inwards towards their own knowledge, skills, experiences, tools and resources to meet their needs. Join the Global Local Caribbean GloCal COVID Post Pandemic Planet Challenge, FEDs Any Age, Any Interest, Any Community. Stimulating actions and education in preparation for the Post Pandemic Planet. Tips, Tools, Tests, Templates. Sign on at www.krisrampersad.com and stay tuned for more #GloCalFEDsCOVIDChallenge #GloCalFEDs #GloCalPostPandemicPlanetChallenge #GloCalPostPandemicPlanet #KrisRampersad Sign up here
Monday, October 7, 2019
UNESCO actions and funding under scrutiny, says Trinidad representative - Caribbean News Now
UNESCO actions and funding under scrutiny, says Trinidad representative
Dr Kris Rampersad
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — Details of funds and activities that would impact small island developing states (SIDS) within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will come before the agency’s executive board’s 197th session in Paris next week.
This was among items promoted by Trinidad and Tobago’s representative on the board, Dr Kris Rampersad, along with Caribbean colleagues, at the Board’s spring (April 2015) sitting, which has had widespread support from SIDS and other states of the 58-member executive board.
“While SIDS has been on the agenda of UNESCO for some time, we felt that UNESCO’s focus on actions should be sharpened, and the budgets available to implement these be specified so as to not be lost among the wide range of activities of UNESCO in the spheres of education, culture, information and communications and science," Rampersad said.
“We requested the director general to present specific details of UNESCO’s focus on SIDS so as to assess what gaps needed to be filled, whether in relation to programmes or budgets," she added.
Rampersad has co-chaired UNESCO’s programme and external relations commission since 2014. One of three constitutional organs of UNESCO, the executive board is elected by the General Conference to prepare UNESCO’s programme of work and budget estimates and provide oversight to implementation of programmes and actions by the director-general.
Rampersad noted that some 45 other items will receive the board’s attention over the two- week period, including the contribution of the programme on management of social transformations (MOST) to the UN Post 2015 agenda, as she recalled that Trinidad and Tobago hosted the Latin American and Caribbean MOST ministers in 2012 while she chaired the national commission for UNESCO.
The board will also consider proposals to introduce an international day for the defence of the mangrove ecosystem and an International Access to Information Day, the contribution of UNESCO to combating climate change in COP 21; and UNESCO’s relations with non-governmental partners, she said.
Rampersad, who will also chair the Education Commission of the UNESCO General Assembly to take place in Paris in November, stated the executive board will further consider a protocol to set up a Conciliation and Good Offices Commission that would settle disputes between states parties to the Convention against Discrimination in Education, and a roadmap for UNESCO’s programme on preventing and addressing school-related gender-based violence.
It will examine recommendations for promotion and use of multilingualism and universal access to cyberspace, on the status of the artist, status of teachers (CEART) and higher-education teaching personnel.
UNESCO actions and funding under scrutiny, says Trinidad representative - Caribbean News Now
Monday, April 15, 2019
Notre Dame heritage landmark ablaze
Notre Dame church on fire...see more
https://krisrampersad.com/notre-dame-heritage-building-on-fire/
Friday, April 21, 2017
Ah drinking babash in this Fo-Rum: Creative Enterprise We-Style For Sir Ken Robinson and the other imports
football
and well-played alcohol
will break down every social wall
will break down every social wall
From WM Herbert, Handmade (for the World
Summit of Arts and Culture, Newcastle UK
June 2006)
Dear Ken, Sir,
So a decade
after we fo-rum together - because you know for sure we share more than the
same initials and on the same programme at the World Summit of Arts and Culture
in Newcastle when you got a taste of the stuff Trini creativity is made of -
you coming for more, eh? On my home turf? Ah
drinking babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, ah
hear they importing you to we soil – ‘cause nothing cyar hide in we choonkey
lil island. Although we have no grapevine and grow no grapes, news, especially
if iz some cochoor, spread like crop season bushfire. The bacchanal and cankalang alone could drive
ah woman to drink. Ah drinking babash,
cause dey…
From the fire in
meh wire ah hear they bringing you and some other boys, just like they bringing
the IMF, to tell we about creativity and what to do with we education and how
to do creative business and about creative enterprise. As if we don’t know how
to do creative business.
Ah drinking
babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, you
think we Trinis don’t know creative business? You really don’t know how
creative we could get with we rum! We could take next people rum and bottle it
and say is we rum yes. A label over a label and look papaya - is your rum! That
is how creative we could get, here, Sir Ken boy. You might want to use that in
one of your speeches.
Ah drinking babash,
cause dey…
We have we own
kind of creative economy too and creative accounting and management that is
what they lorn in dem Institutes for higher, or hire, learning - I not sure which.
They growing creative managers and we still hoping they go ripen into some leaders.
Where else, eh, billions of dollars flowing in from oil, dey say, and all them
oil business in billions of dollars debt and they not thinking bout diversifying they still waiting for the next
oil boom, just like how as soon as Carnival done, they cyar wait fuh the next
one. Is like dat. That sounds like some creative sense to you? Oil tabanca to
fill a tabantruck. And the lil artist and writer still balancing a budget and
living without debt eh, so is tax and tax and tax we into debt and drink. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
Sr Ken, I know
you like to talk about enterprise. I could tell you about Enterprise. In fact I
will show you, when you come. In
Enterprise dem boys know creative pursuits eh. Guns, drugs, murder and mayhem. Dey
learn well. Wild wild west style just like in the movies they cyar practice
they trigger-happiness in, cause we doh have ah movie industry. So is practice on
the streets, day and night: bang! bang! Live movie action. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken, remember
the couple nail biting hours we shared watching the 2006 World Cup qualifiers in
front of that screen in the Newcastle/Gateshead caterpillar they call the arts
centre – we have one now too, we own arts centre that not only look like a
caterpillar, it have caterpillars and other termites crawling all over too, right smack in front
the Range as if to say is a bigger saga boy than the natural beauty of the Northern
Range. Crumbling like all them institutions law, parliament, education, all crumbling at the beams from termites and parasites 'cause the centre cannot hold. It open in 2009, three years after I return from the Summit, talk about cultural transference. You will see it when you come, if
you get time to step out of the higher-at place they keeping you nah, I could take you on an eye-opening LiTTour - a Journey Through the Landscapes of Fiction - although it staring you in your face is all fiction eh, no truth in that at all at all.
Ah drinking babash, cause
dey…
Sir Ken, boy,
your visit really send me down memory lane. When we was watching that football match
World Cup Qualifiers T&T vs UK 2006. I nearly chew-out the top
of all meh fingers after that first goal, hoping that we boys would at least
score one peeny-weeny goal against ye old Brits so I could ah tell the fo-rum the
next day when I presenting on MAS Culture what mas do fuh we! Well-qualified to
tell how we boys had some good babash that’s why they lick all-yuh good. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
But just how they rig the match and give we
poor boys dat coonoomoonoo kindda liquor the Scots call ‘water of life’ ooskie,
so the boys played like coonoomoonoos. Is no different nah, is just so they rig
my presentation and I come with the best powerpoint with motion video of the
winning 2006 most colourful wining Carnival girls inserted in powerpoint even
before powerpoint had invented the movie insert feature – but the first world
didn’t have the new software to run it, at least that is what they say, as if I
could believe that the first world didn’t have the software and me from me from
a teeny weeny backward banana boat island have this technology. Ah drinking babash, cause dey …
Good thing I had
a back-up plan and walk with me rum for the fo-rum in the NewCastle caterpillar,
eh Sir Ken, boy. Because between you and me you never know how them boys would
perform. But we could export real creative ways of managing football funds eh –
arkse Jack, ah warn you, it go blow yuh mind. We creative fuh so. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
That day at the
summit when you and your boys stumbled out of the room, with two goals and well
at least I scored with some ‘well-played alcohol’ – ask WM Herbert who made
that poem for and on our fo-rum at the World Arts Summit where that line came
from.
football and well-played alcohol
will break down every social wall
will break down every social wall
From WM Herbert, Handmade (for the World Summit of Arts and Culture, Newcastle UK June 2006)
Is we Trini rum
he talking ‘bout! It is true we didn’t win the world football qualifying match,
but we won the World Summit fete! Ah could tell you that because I had the
creative intelligence to pack meh bottle ah rum for the fo-rum! You have to
agree, that was pure genius to break down them social walls if not the glass
ceiling, eh! And it look like I help T&T qualify too cause at last now we
have you, Sir, come here and grace we with your knightly presence! After all
the times I have to go to talk to fo-rums in all yuh first world, tho not here,
eh, not here! But exchange is no robbery where creative enterprise is concerned
eh. Now you understand?
Ah drinking
babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, to
tell you the truth, I really thought when I see the invitation from the World
Summit on Arts and Culture to talk, and me name list next to yours on the
programme, I thought that is why I was invited you know, to bring some Trini
rum for the fo-rum, so is the first thing I pack. And 9/11 rules didn’t kick in
yet so I could walk through immigration with it so bold face holding it in
front me, waving it like the national flag and all them immigration and customs
people through the Brit airport nodding and smiling maybe hoping for a sip.
Ah drinking babash cause dey…
I couldn’t bring
babash though. It was not just because of the airline rules and ye olde
mercantilist impulse to make everything indigenous like we own way of making we
own rum illegal. It is really because as a true daughter of the soil - eating
dirt, as they say, cause breaking that glass ceiling tough boy - I holding on
to me secret knowledge of babash-making because we like to keep we real
creative stuff hidden in the backyard nah. Ah
drinking babash ‘cause dey…
They importing
you and the boys to tell them how to be creative without a mind about parting
with their creatively-earned foreign exchange – easy come easy go.
Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
Who knows more
than me about how they killing creativity, eh, about passion eh, about living
yuh talent, about multiple intelligences eh? Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
Now we boys don’t
have not even a peeny eeny bit of curiosity to know the secret knowledge of
creating babash, after they kill the industry dead dead to feed a few pipers to
play some foreign tune for them. Those who have a lil curiosity want to know for
free, ask Spree, and still they wouldn’t listen. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
If you want to
know how to kill Trini creativity – Sir Ken boy – I know that is yur pet
subject and you want some local insights, I sharing, for free because in
T&T the arts is a freeco thing, only to laugh for an evening comedy show,
not to use to make education and law and social reengineering and to mean something
to we in we own image. Nah. We have to
hide it and practice it in secret – like drinking babash.
Is not just the
education system, nah, is how they stomp out we homemade rum and make it
illegal – the same way they make we marriage traditions and drum beating
traditions illegal, and plenty plenty thing that good for the grass roots – if yuh catch me drift – everything
grass roots illegal here, even grass. Dat’s why nobody take on the law. It
illegal to get married, it illegal to have sex, it illegal to smoke weed and
still everybody doing it. Just like we have laws against murders, laws against
incest, laws against violence and child abuse, laws against thiefing, and laws
against all kinds ah thing – and that eh stop nobody! Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Maybe they think
that as a daughter I shudda be tie up and tie de knot not realizing that is one
old law – and who take on the law here anyway eh – get married at 12, 14, 16 - not
me. I keep my focus on the instructions to go forth and multiply which I really
thought mean go fly off on this trip and dat trip and multiply intelligence,
with this idea and that idea, and follow this dream and that dream to teach
people about creativity and cultural industries and how to reengineer education
for self-esteem and to think for themselves and to value what they know and
what they have and appreciate they multiple intelligences – I really
thought that is what that meant yes: go forth and multiply. Ah
drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
I fly out because
I didn’t want to be stripped of me self-respect, left wandering in the street
like the lil ex-Mayor of Chaguanas, nah. We filling them lil girls head with
ambition that a Woman’s Place is in the House of Parliament and some of the
women we put in the top there only want your head cause they head filled with
being part of the old boys’ club. Sisterhood dead dead. That is what happen
when you put yourself up for public office here. You could turn into a raving
lunatic if you don’t have a stash ah babash, yes arkse ex-Mayor Natasha.
Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
As she find out
too, it turns out, I was wrong and I should ah stay home and mind baby and leave
them ambitions to the boys, like you, who they importing through the creative
cultural foreign stock exchange and stick with me home made backyard country
brew.
Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Although I not
from the Caroni, like everybody else who come here by boat my ancestors get rum
before they get pay, so this fo-rum thing in meh blood and I still could knock
back a good few like any of the boys at any fo-rum, mano-y-mano, shatter the
glass bottles if not the glass ceiling – you want a list ah the fo-rums in
which I scored fo-rum after fo-rum: Newcastle, South Africa, India, Malaysia, France,
Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Belize, Jamaica, Colombia, Mexico, Barcelona,
Scotland, Montreal … It reading like the World Cup qualifying list eh?
Ah
qualify for sure, drinking babash, ‘cause
dey…
When you come ah
go show you, Sir Ken, here at home we know where to find the real stuff. Is a
small island, nah. Everybody know where to find babash or guns or drugs, or who
kidnapping who for ransom and who planning to do for who, who doing prayers on
who head, who is the boys dealing, and trading and stacking organs and orange
juice in freezers – everybody and they lawyer know, but not the law – we call
it creative blindness because if you know yuh could get you light out, just so
just so. Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Sir Ken, you
will find out for yourself, eh. Here, everybody done know everything ahready.
All we want is a lil laugh and that’s why they invite you, so they could laugh
a lil bit. They done know that culture is a song and a dance and a comedy show
so everybody with a lil bit a creativity try to get into comedy because they
have to eat. Plain and simple. Culture is not about intelligences and policy
and curriculum development and conscience building, and social stability and
inclusion and management, and business. You mad or what? And is best they hear
it from you who doh really know dem so it could sound nice and distant and
theoretical and academic. You would be fine. Dey wouldn’t cut the mike on you
because you from foreign, as they do to me for talking the naked truth. Ah drinking Babash cause dey… 
Sir Ken, you would have a great time. You go come; you go go back home and say what a nice people, who laugh plenty at all you jokes and make some ah they own jokes too, and the rum flow like water and the babash hiding in the back room and you get a nice bit a foreign exchange people here cyar even get to send they children who away to school. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
When you leave
we could go back to blaming the old Brits for the mess we in although the Brits
using we creativity to teach creativity, and we with we own independent
institutions in we own self-determining nation – well is not we is dem to blame. Ah drinking babash, cause they…
If you want some
fresh material, for Port of Spain or even for them TED Talks you know where to find me, eh Sir Ken, boy, and say how-do-you-do-to-me girl Lizzie eh, and me famalee, the royalings, and if you have luggage space take these letters I have for she, please 'cause ah cyar afford the postage stamps.
Ah drinking babash, cause they…
Ah drinking babash, cause they…
If you want to
know the rest of the refrain, arkse that Rumbunctious Rumraj.
World Summit repositions arts & culture
Clear
role in governance and sustainability defined
By Dr
Kris Rampersad
football and well-played alcohol
will break down every social wall.
will break down every social wall.
From WM Herbert, Handmade
(For the World Summit of Arts and Culture, June 2006)
If culture is to be defined as the product of human
interactions,
the place of the human in a world traumatised by diminishing
social, environmental, political and equitable economic relations was at the
core of the World Summit on Arts and Culture.
Held in Newcastle/Gateshead, England from June 14 to 18, 2006
through sponsorship by the International Federation of Arts Councils and
Culture Agencies, the Arts Council of England and the Commonwealth Foundation,
the Summit saw arts and culture practitioners and activists in dialogue with
policy makers, planners and supporters.
In keeping with the theme “transforming people, transforming
lives,” some 500 Summit participants grappled with challenges of helping
Governments and decision makers to recognise the position of culture and the
arts in regenerating societies’ physical and social environments and economies.
Effectively, they invited revision in conceptualisation, approaches, and
methods that have so far dominated decision-making, which, in the general
division of labour functions and responsibilities, have left regeneration and
sustenance to the sciences, economics, politics and the hard-core world of
doers - not dreamers.
Skepticism that the arts has a place in this isn’t altogether
unfounded, given that artistic development has traditionally leaned on
philanthropy, the generosity of supporters, donors, endowments, and other the
like - polar opposites, surely, to, notions of sustainability.
But some 30 presenters outlined working examples of how, when
well-directed, the cultural industries can sustain societies: from use of
architecture to reduce delinquency in a district in Houston, to development of
a district in Ethiopia by indigenous craft, to how the Carnival festival from
Trinidad and Tobago has evolved to global proportions represented in some 150
countries around the world and involving a range of artistic talents and
skills. Participants were also exposed
to the UK’s Creative Partnerships that effected regeneration through art,
architecture, music, design, theatre and film. In Kielder, for example, art and
architecture such as the Belvedere and Skyspace combine with the local
landscape, riverscape and skyscape to bring the natural environment into
sharper human focus, while encouraging environmental protection and reviving
the district’s tourist economy.
From
an unchallenged premise that more people participate in culture, than vote, the
Summit asserted the potential of culture and the arts in providing for basic
human needs of food, shelter and clothing, while retaining its traditional role
in nourishing minds. In its easy capacity to support co-existence and
accommodate divergent views, polar opposites, diversity and difference through
its metaphors and similes, borrowings and samplings, and general artistry, arts
and culture were seen to hold key solutions to minimizing the negative impact
of the conflicts between economic development and sustainability, technological
advancement and traditional practices, nature and nurture that result in social
and economic inequalities, disempowerment, and ethnic strife.
The exchange of project and ideas for processes of execution, as
well as methods of quantifying input and outputs from arts and culture-based
projects were stimulating and inspiring. NewcastleGateshead proved the ideal
incubator for this global mishmash of thinkers and doers. De-hyphenated and brought together to create
one of the world’s most successful stories of the potential of arts and culture
for not only economic regeneration but social cohesion of “rival districts”,
these districts are now joined by the hip, as it were, in the Sage Centre where
the Summit was located. In all of this, participants found time to create a
World Choir and a Summit Song, A Poem - an extract from which is cited above -
a drama; share nail-biting moments of the FIFA World Cup, and take a sneak peak
into Hollywood’s Hogsworth, through the hospitality of the Duchess of
Northumberland at Alnwick Castle where parts of the JK Rowling’s Harry Potter
movies were filmed.
Related Links:
The Walcott Files
LiTTscapes for Littribute to the Antilles
A LiTTribute at UNESCO
Inscription by UNESCO of Poems
Small only in Size UNESCO Executive Board told
World in a Fishbowl
Death of Knowledge & social Conscience
A Musical Heritage walk UNESCO Creative Cities
LiTTscapes for Littribute to the Antilles
A LiTTribute at UNESCO
Inscription by UNESCO of Poems
Small only in Size UNESCO Executive Board told
World in a Fishbowl
Death of Knowledge & social Conscience
A Musical Heritage walk UNESCO Creative Cities
The-ghost-of journalism past
Ask about LiTTours and LiTTributes
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Friday, March 17, 2017
Nobel Tears of and for a Nobel Bard now Sower in the Skies Derek Walcott RIP
A Literary Life
I saw tears pouring down the cheeks of Derek Walcott. Twice. That is apart from the
tears he evidently sheds digging into his personal and historical trauma to articulate
our vision and aspirations for our society, our world.
On the first occasion, he is in immense distress and anguish. On the other
occasion his are tears of immeasurable pleasure, joy and sense of accomplishment. Both
times were in relation to his art. He was not acting: Private, personal emotion
pouring out uncontrollably about his passion for his work, his art, the society
that inspires, nurtures and receives it with disdain or with pride. Antithetical
emotions conveyed in seemingly like expression, portrayed in the face of the
same individual.
The two moments may well sum up the range and scope of the
man, the artist, the playwright, the poet, the essayist, the dramatist, the
human. They also sum up the pain and pleasure of piloting art in a society
like ours.
“What does this society want, Kris, tell me”, Derek’s
anguish had burst out. Tears brim in his eyes and over flow down his cheek.
It is the year of our collaboration on the staging of Steel, the play he wrote
and directed to celebrate the creative impulse of the region which manifests in the creation of the signatory percussion instrument birthed in the 20th
century, the steelpan. It is also to celebrate the communities and people and socio-economic-political
and cultural realities that spawned its birth and growth and the dreams and
ambitions of those who created it. The play reflected the yearning for acceptance and
appreciation for its emergence; acknowledgement of the impulses from which it
springs, to provide the music it does: to seduce, charm, excite, admonish, cajole
and the range of emotions and experiences music can provoke in us. 
A run and rerun of sold-out highly appreciative and applauding
audiences had translated into an onslaught of deflating media reviews that
Walcott. The emerging media tone was that not even the globally
lauded Nobel Laureate Walcott, could capture and convey the Steelpan and steelband;
that what he presented was farcical and a shadow of what the steelpan was and
meant to the people who spawned it and the society that claimed it.
The weeks and months of careful auditioning the right
talents for the right roles; the highly-temperamental rehearsals, flowing over with energy, buoyed by optimism, and the nightly audiences of packed Queen’s Hall and standing
ovations evoked the tears that stuck in memory as what one may and should
expect of our society despite the enormous passion and self-sacrifice to excel and help other's excel for one’s art. The moment would resonate over the years.
That could have been my lament. But like Derek, I chose
instead to turn the sigh into a song. Because there there is the flip side, to which I had front row seats to witness another tearful moment. This was
the tears on the night of the awards ceremony held in his name and in tribute. Derek cried uncontrollably as he
recognized a seven year-old who had entered our competition to attract writers.
I was asked by Albert Laveau, the Trinidad Theatre Workshop’s
Creative Director, to manage the public and media outreach and engagement and
publicity for the Workshop which Derek and Albert among others had founded in the 1950s. As the TTW was then working on the production of Steel, my role
morphed into handling the full outreach and engagement portfolio for the play and related activities. The play had initially been launched some quarter century earlier in New York. This was its coming home. Derek, who took full control of the production, insisted on a meeting. Within minutes, the formalities and his acceptance of my role
aside, our conversation turned to the literary arts and the common lament on
the declining quality and quantity of new works.
I am an optimist. The
inhibiting factors that made quality writers and artist reticent in surfacing
their work were many and I believed with encouragement and incentive some of
those sitting on creditable work would surface. Perhaps an offer of prizes?
Derek immediately sparked. He pulled out his cheque book,
wrote a cheque and said, “There. Let’s begin.” I was surprised at the immediate,
enthusiastic and generous response. He set no conditions on how I may use his
contribution. The next day I told him that it would go towards a literary
prize.
Within days of public release of this, and a few strategic calls, I had a call from the
General Manager of the Trinidad Hilton, Mr Ali Khan. He would match the contribution of Walcott with
a similar sum, also to be used as I saw fit. In meeting again with Laveau and
Walcott we decided it would be called the Trinidad Theatre Workshop's Fund for Literature
and Drama. As
word got around, First Citizen’s Bank also offered to match Derek's contribution which went towards the prize for Children's Fiction. The momentum built, and Business magnate Derek Chin of MovieTowne offered to pitch in a prize for film and we were able to satisfy Albert who pointed out that void in drama and script writing. By and by, after some cajoling, the University of the West Indies, later came in, which funds went towards a prize for poetry. The Hilton prize went to Children's fiction.
Within the month we had five prizes, that became known as
the Trinidad Theatre Workshop Prizes for Literature, Drama and Film.
Recognising that the region had not in any significant way acknowledged Derek Walcott’s win of the Nobel Prize for Literature some thirteen years
earlier, I proposed A Year of Derek Walcott. After all we were in the year of the Laureate's 75th birthday which alone merited celebration. The proposal was accepted. Derek, of
course, was modestly reticent, but the enthusiasm of Laveau and myself made his
doubts insignificant. The Year of Celebrations would begin with the activities
around Steel and culminate in the awards ceremony of the TTW Prizes for
Literature, Drama and Film. I was now conceptualising, managing and executing the outreach on Steel, the TTW Competition for Literature, Drama and Film
(including long fiction, short fiction, poetry, drama and short film script) and
its Prizes and Awards Ceremony and A Year of Derek Walcott when he would celebrate
his 75th Birthday - burning the candle on both ends.
The literary world was abuzz. It created ripples across the region and beyond. Calls were coming in for Derek's Steel to tour other parts of the world; potential movie offers. The short script award became the precursor to MovieTowne's short film competition and festival and our activities inspired literary and other like festivals. Derek's fellow citizens of St Lucia, his birth country, were quick to
point out that Trinidad and Tobago, Walcott’s adopted country, was staging A
Year of Derek Walcott - a year! What was his birthplace St Lucia doing? It inspired St Lucia’s now annual staging of a Nobel Laureate Week - a week of Derek
Walcott during the week of his birthday in January. Incidentally, he was born a month before my mom, of which I often jokingly reminded him, and proffered that she was single/widowed.
Immersed in directing Steel, Derek would enquire about how we the
competition was progressing. I kept him apprised of development and the pace of submissions. He was visibly touched by the interest and responses it
had garnered from writers in all spheres and especially when I told him that
one of the contenders was a seven year old who was making a bid for the short
story prize.
Derek, Albert and I worked together on the programme for the
night of the awards ceremony that will be called Evening Epic. I came up with the name, drawing from the title of his Nobel Lecture, "The Antilles Fragments of Epic Memory." Following Steel,
the Laureate joined in preparing the programme, recommending pieces
of his works that would be dramatized and sung.
Walcott held as a principle that actors and artistes should
be paid for their work in a society that expects artists to live on air while giving souls to service. To return the favour, many with whom he had worked were
willing to give of their time, skills and talent to pay tribute to an artist
whose work spans two centuries. They included members of the cast and crew of Steel with pieces from various of his musicals: The enormously popular satirical The Joker of Seville; among them, which music was composed by the US phenomenal. The Joker was produced from Walcott's legendary association with the US Walt MacDermot who had revolutionised american musicals in the rocking 60s.
At Evening Epic, the night of the awards ceremony of the TTW
Prizes for Literature, Drama and Film, touched by the tributes, and the event
which is also one his legacies, Derek cried. They were tears of joy. The tears unbridled when we asked that he present a special prize to the seven year old who was brave enough to make his submission to the competition.
Those tears were the counterpoint to many of his own laments about the region and our societies inertia and stagnation, the
corruption, the narcissistic institutions crumbling at the seems the power mongering, the fraudsters and proponents of bogus festivals, and the neglect of the arts – "Hell is a place much like Port of Spain" (The Spoiler's Return); a place which
he nevertheless unhesitatingly celebrates.
...Port of Spain, the sum of history, ,,,A downtown babel of shop signs and streets, mongrelized, polyglot, a ferment without a history, like heaven. Because that is what such a city is, in the New World, a writer's heaven.
...I was entitled to the feast of Husein, to the mirrors and crepe-paper temples of the Muslim epic, to the Chinese Dragon Dance, to the rites of that Sephardic Jewish synagogue that was once on Something Street. I am only one-eighth the writer I might have been had I contained all the fragmented languages of Trinidad.... This is Port of Spain to me, a city ideal in its commercial and human proportions, where a citizen is a walker and not a pedestrian, and this is how Athens may have been before it became a cultural echo. (Derek Walcott, Nobel Lecture, 1992)
If one believes in the potential of literature and its related arts to transform us and societies, one would have to conclude that there must be insufficient reading, understanding and internalization that could impact our individual and human condition.
Our lives become immersed in trying to resist the forces that threaten to have us degenerate into a mere 'cultural echo', even in the face of superlatively incisive vision and artistry of the likes of Derek Walcott and the enormous creative capacity we embody.
...Port of Spain, the sum of history, ,,,A downtown babel of shop signs and streets, mongrelized, polyglot, a ferment without a history, like heaven. Because that is what such a city is, in the New World, a writer's heaven.
...I was entitled to the feast of Husein, to the mirrors and crepe-paper temples of the Muslim epic, to the Chinese Dragon Dance, to the rites of that Sephardic Jewish synagogue that was once on Something Street. I am only one-eighth the writer I might have been had I contained all the fragmented languages of Trinidad.... This is Port of Spain to me, a city ideal in its commercial and human proportions, where a citizen is a walker and not a pedestrian, and this is how Athens may have been before it became a cultural echo. (Derek Walcott, Nobel Lecture, 1992)
If one believes in the potential of literature and its related arts to transform us and societies, one would have to conclude that there must be insufficient reading, understanding and internalization that could impact our individual and human condition.
Our lives become immersed in trying to resist the forces that threaten to have us degenerate into a mere 'cultural echo', even in the face of superlatively incisive vision and artistry of the likes of Derek Walcott and the enormous creative capacity we embody.
In his Nobel Lecture as Nobel Laureate for Literature
in 1992, Walcott would turn to the most festering chasms of Caribbean society –
the divisions that keep us from celebrating and revering ourselves and the
peoples who make our society, pinning it on his experience as the outside ‘other’
at the celebrations of Ramleela, brought to Trinidad and Tobago by indentured immigrant
labourers from India – an experience, he chastises himself, that was as much
his to own, as any other of the identities he claims:
They believed in what they were
playing, in the sacredness of the text, the validity of India, while I, out of
the writer's habit, searched for some sense of elegy, of loss, even of
degenerative mimicry in the happy faces of the boy-warriors or the heraldic
profiles of the village princes. I was polluting the afternoon with doubt and
with the patronage of admiration. I misread the event through a visual echo of
History - the cane fields, indenture, the evocation of vanished armies,
temples, and trumpeting elephants - when all around me there was quite the
opposite: elation, delight in the boys' screams, in the sweets-stalls, in more
and more costumed characters appearing; a delight of conviction, not loss. The
name Felicity made sense…
Wind the clock back, to 1962 and the dawning of ours as nations newly independent of colonial rule. His search inwards takes him through the colonial journey from Africa, via Eurasia to the Caribbean., and as relevant then as it is in today's world of irrationalism, violent extremism, racism and terrorism. He writes in A Far Cry from Africa:
Statistics justify and scholars seizeThe salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilizations dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
….
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
These experiences would inspire and buoy my own drive to grow, nurture,
encourage and sustain literary appreciation through the Leaves of Life initiative and the publication of
LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago - which deviated in
its presentation of prose fiction to also represent some of Walcott’s insights
through poetry on our ‘scapes’ - and its associated activities of LiTTours – Journeys Through the Landscapes of Fiction; and
LiTTributes – events that celebrate the literary artistic impulse in itsrelation to other arts in song, music, drama, costuming, cuisine, art and
design, architecture, landscape, culture, festival and celebration, forging connections among us, and with other societies too - with LiTTribute to the Mainland - staged in Guyana, to LiTTribute to LondonTTown, and elsewhere. LiTTribute to the Antilles that we staged in Antigua in fact sprang from Walcott's Nobel Lecture, The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory which had also inspired our Evening Epic, the award ceremony for literary prizes. His Nobel lecture I use to encourage comparative discourse to broaden our appreciation of ourselves, outlooks and perspectives on Caribbean society, with the Nobel Lecture of Sir Vidia Naipaul, Two Worlds our Trinidadian son who took the prized Nobel Laureate almost a decade after Walcott in 2001.
To have shared in the depths of anguish and the heights of joy
of one of the individuals who have labored to help shape the global conscience of the previous and this centuries to be sensitive to small island realities were
pivotal experiences in my awakening, awareness and appreciation of the place of
my art, my life, my work, in a society like ours.
Surrounded by paraphernalia from the productions, with the
tears of anguish and of celebration, thank you Derek Walcott (January
23, 1930 to March 17, 2017)
There are no more fitting words for an epitaph than what you have written yourself, with my most recent visitation from the sower:
There are no more fitting words for an epitaph than what you have written yourself, with my most recent visitation from the sower:
There is a sower in the sky
That sows the seeds of stars
That sowers name is death my love
Who sows that we shall die
And if I die before you love
The harvest that I reap
Will be the memory of our love
Through everlasting sleep
In everlasting sleep, my love, in everlasting sleep
Derek Walcott, The Joker of
Seville
Related Links:
The Walcott Files
LiTTscapes for Littribute to the Antilles
A LiTTribute at UNESCO
Inscription by UNESCO of Poems
Small only in Size UNESCO Executive Board told
World in a Fishbowl
Death of Knowledge & social Conscience
A Musical Heritage walk UNESCO Creative Cities
Making Music with Steel
The Walcott Files
LiTTscapes for Littribute to the Antilles
A LiTTribute at UNESCO
Inscription by UNESCO of Poems
Small only in Size UNESCO Executive Board told
World in a Fishbowl
Death of Knowledge & social Conscience
A Musical Heritage walk UNESCO Creative Cities
Making Music with Steel
After several years of delay, the Trinidad Theatre Workshop’s long-awaited musical Steel is finally raring to go.
Written and directed by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Steel details the birth of pan.
In an interview, TTW publicist Dr Kris Rampersad said the show is scheduled to premiere on September 13 at Queen’s Hall.
She said repairs at Queen’s Hall and the venue being overbooked over the past few years were reasons for the delay.
Despite the hold-up, Rampersad sees Steel as the definitive musical on the rise of pan.
Rampersad said she believed this musical was going to end the debate on pan in Trinidad by documenting everything from its birth and development to the clashes in the 1940s.
Rampersad’s confidence stems from the quality of the cast and the musical stewardship.
Besides Walcott’s directing, composer Galt MacDermot wrote the music for Steel and Gene Lawrence will serve as musical director.
MacDermot won a Tony Award for scoring Two Gentlemen of Verona.
He has written the music for other Walcott plays, such as The Charlatan, O Babylon and The Joker of Seville.
Leon Morenzie, TTW artistic director Albert Laveau, Conrad Parris, TTW veteran Nigel Scott, and singer Mavis John will all play roles in the musical.
Morenzie received a nomination by the US National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) for his role as Sam in Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys.
Born in Trinidad, Morenzie now lives in California and has worked on Broadway as the lead actor in The Leaf People.
Aside from appearing on sitcoms such as Martin and the Steve Harvey Show, he also served as a dialect coach for Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo in the movie Hotel Rwanda.
Baritone Brian Green is also carded to perform.
Green, who performed in Carnival Messiah, sang in 1999 with the National Opera of Wellington, New Zealand.
Set in the Laventille-Belmont area, most of the action in Steel takes place in panyards.
Rampersad said pannists from Witco Desperadoes and Pandemonium would play as members of the fictional band “the Bandidos” during the show.
She also said Steel would help serve as a marketing tool for T&T’s culture.
With a current thrust towards cultural tourism, Rampersad said the idea was for T&T to serve as the launching pad for the musical, as Steel would be also performed internationally by the local ensemble.
She also reiterated that the show’s quality could never be in question.
“Derek Walcott settles for nothing but the best and he brooks no compromise. Steel can’t be anything less than perfect.”
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