Jr Calypso comp.& dramatic plays suggested for VI Festival season
The suggestion was made amidst increasing calls for additional elements of Virgin Islands culture to be included in the Festival which some claim have been nearly non-existent.
During the Umoja radio programme aired on August 15, 2013, commentator Natalio Wheatley aka Sowande Uhuru said, “Everything doesn’t have to happen in the [Festival] Village and I believe that around Festival time it would be nice to have a play, just like how Janice Stoutt did that play for the Arts Festival that Hon. Delores Christopher put on.”
He felt that the idea of a Junior Calypso Competition would also be a welcome addition to Emancipation Festival activities and stated that this may encourage persons who have otherwise abstained from participating in the Festival to get involved.
“Let’s say maybe all the primary schools have a calypso competition and some of the things we mentioned will be the focus,” Wheatley added. He suggested that schools could also compete against each other for a Junior Calypso crown noting that this may help with the development of the Calypso art form within the Territory.
“…brothers and sisters come from other islands where they have strong participation in the calypso, strong traditions of calypso in their islands and they come here and they contribute to our celebrations, but for whatever reason, I guess the institutions have not been created here to produce that local involvement in the calypso competitions,” Wheatley stated.
Co-host, Cromwell Smith aka Edju En Ka stated that criteria needed to be set for Calypsonians during the Festival period so that cultural elements could be brought out. “The messages that we are going to hold in high regard for those persons to win the competition, there is some criteria that have to be met, particularly in regards to the messages coming out in the calypso,” he said.
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6 Responses to “Jr Calypso comp.& dramatic plays suggested for VI Festival season”
Calypso is treated as something that is seasonal only to be enjoyed during Festival celebrations. Could this be part of our identity crisis? Could it be that we are so busy trying distinguish ourselves as uniquely different that we fail to see the common threads that make us one with others in the region? To the extent that we continue to identify more with our Northern neighbors than those to the South we will have this dilemma. Another thing we must do is to teach our youngsters to filter some of the garbage they are treated to everyday through music of whatever genre. Go back to the days of good social commentary laced with satire and picong (only a few of our artist demonstrate this skill…..most notable Luther B. Back to the days when “love songs” really had themes of love and not explicit sexual content.
Maybe if we award better prizes for participation in Calypso as is the case around the region we would have more interest which leads to more involvement. Lip service won't do it. Why would anyone young person want to invest time in Calypso when at our major functions the headliners are all imported? Even in other genres of music we see our artists taking a back seat to others. What is worse, we pay huge sums of money to these imports and don't get the returns. Many other Caribbean islands have invited some of those stalwarts like Chalkdust and others to conduct workshops and help the young people from primary school onward develop the necessary skills. For any fruit to grow the seed must first be planted and nurtured in order for it to develop into something worthwhile. Our problem will continue as long as insular identities supersede regional ones. The culture of the BVI is not much different from any other Anglophone Caribbean island but we choose to highlight the differences rather than recognize the similarities. Calypso will thrive providing we become more interested and give it the place it deserves as a musical genre that all Caribbean people can claim irrespective of its origin (Trinidad).
Many among us like to show off our Africanism by donning African garb and touting an ideological bent of things African yet we cannot see ourselves as part of the cultural fabric of the Caribbean. We even go as far as changing our names. We are Pan African before we are Pan Caribbean. Maybe we ought to first coalesce around things Caribbean before we step to the continent especially since many of us are of African extraction. After all, our experience as a people was in the Caribbean and we have evolved as a people within the context of that experience and that development should be our primary focus.