The Teen Empowerment through Carnival Arts (TECA) Project is the brainchild of Rachel Watts, a Ghanian-born, T&T-raised arts educator currently living in New York. The initiative gives 12 teenagers from the community of East New York Brooklyn the opportunity to build a small Carnival band which will take part in September’s West Indian Day Parade … Continue reading
(I’ve added some pieces here that I had to leave out of the newspaper version. Enjoy!) Rapsoman Wendell Manwarren has had a long and varied career in the arts, beginning with the opera and continuing through theatre, mas-making and rapso. Manwarren spoke about his journey to a standing-room only crowd at the Monday Night Theatre … Continue reading
Perhaps if now ex- Port-of-Spain Mayor Raymond Tim Kee had attended the recently held forum, “Just a Wine: Body Politics in the Carnival,” he might have begun to understand why his controversial remarks led to women and men uniting to carry out the protest which eventually resulted in his resignation. The forum, held on January … Continue reading
The fourth Monday Night Forum at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop featuring legendary Trinidad Theatre practitioner and Tent Theatre Founding Artistic Director Helen Camps, drew a crowd of admirers, theatre practitioners and the curious, and for good reason. Camps’ stories of her current work in the maximum security prisons alternately drew tears to the eyes and … Continue reading
“T&T mas has played the glory that was Greece, Imperial Rome, Africa, New Guinea, China, the Forbidden City and gone into realms of fantasy. There are no boundaries to the realms of the imagination.” Veteran masman Peter Minshall had those words for those who questioned the relevance of his 2016 Carnival King piece, “The Dying … Continue reading
“Waiting on the Stage” by Machel Montano has been the subject of much talk since it was released, with many commenters saying it doesn’t sound like soca. That sound, a fusion of EDM and soca, is the product of Badjohn Republic, a new production group. “Waiting on the Stage” is the group’s first major outing … Continue reading
“I hope they come away from the show having experienced something visceral.” 3Canal’s Wendell Manwarren expressed the hope following the first Backyard Jam where the group’s new music for 2016 was launched, along with this year’s Jouvay concept, Black Jab Nation. This year, the show will be held at the Big Black Box on Murray … Continue reading
Acclaimed writer Earl Lovelace will be attending the 12th edition of the Caribbean Festival of the Arts (CARIFESTA) in Haiti, from August 21 to August 30. He will be a keynote speaker at a two-day symposium themed “The Caribbean, a Collective Memory,” which will question the issue of reparations and how the history of the … Continue reading
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