Ringplay Productions

Just for those people who are not aware, the Bahamian contingent sent to CARIFESTA IX in T&T aimed to cover a broad spectrum of the arts. It’s important to note that every area was not covered; the visual arts, for instance, are hardly represented, the culinary arts are reserved for those people staying in the apartments with kitchens (i.e. the cast of Horse), Junkanoo has offered only a tiny taste of the full event, and so on. But the performing arts and the literary arts are being given good exposure, and our crafts and local merchandise have been in high demand.

Tonight, last night and the night before, The Bahamas was featured high on the calendar of events in CARIFESTA. Sadly, though, the international audience was scant; in most cases, we played largely to Bahamians in Trinidad. Not completely, but largely. While this was disappointing to some of the headliners, in particular, nevertheless people got to perform. And as has been the case throughout our stay here, the performances were top-notch.

Here was the line-up of Bahamian performances. The first weekend saw a group of 25 Junkanoo performers in Tobago, and a group of 50-plus singers, dancers and rake and scrape performers in San Fernando in the south of Trinidad.

Junkanoo in Tobago

Monday featured Ophie and the Webbsites, the rake-and-scrape group in the Grand Market, at the Rum Shop stage — a fine venue for acoustic and small-amp performers.

Ophie and the Webbsites in the Rum Shop…

…joined by Ancient Man.

Tuesday brought a rush-out in the Grand Market, which stopped all activities and electrified the people there.

Vola and Gayay carry the banner

And the crowd follows the rush!

Wednesday night saw a gospel performance involving the large band, the singers, and the sacred music headliners (mostly Sonovia Pierre and Simeon Outten).

The Choir

Freeport’s Simeon Outten stirs the crowd up

More Outten

Sonovia lights a spark

Thursday and Friday brought double features, with a choir-and-dance performance at the Queen’s Hall in Port of Spain and a performance of Horse in San Fernando on Thursday, and another performance of Horse and the Country Night Show (a variety show featuring dance, spoken word, choral music, and headline performances). Tonight we wrap up with an all-Bahamian music night on the Main Stage at the Grand Market.

It’s been a learning experience. We’ve been taking notes. This is the first incarnation of the New CARIFESTA Model, and has had many hiccups and challenges. The main challenges with which we’ve been faced have been the marketing and scheduling of events. The two are connected, of course. A schedule that is too flexible and open to change is impossible to market, with the result that audiences miss important performances and shows are cancelled or changed at the last minute. The writers, for instance, were frustrated for a long time with disappearing events and empty venues, and the contingent as a whole has never been exposed to the writers’ work — a definite challenge. The other issue was the fact that the mingling of artists from around the region was limited. This CARIFESTA was spread out all over Trinidad and Tobago, and may have been spread too thin — contingents were scheduled to be in widely disparate venues and rarely had the opportunity for networking and exchange. This difficulty was addressed in large measure by the opening of the Artists’ Village in St. Ann’s — a fabulous space — but some important opportunities were missed.

Festival Village, where the artists hang out

The rehearsal stage at Festival Village — in the beginning one of the best-kept secrets of CARIFESTA!

Still, the new CARIFESTA model has been launched, and will grow. We can only be grateful to Trinidad and Tobago for biting the bullet and taking the risk of the new festival on, and The Bahamas will have to build on the successes — the Artist’s Village was the greatest of these, I think — and learn from the mistakes for 2008. We’ve got one performance and the Closing Gala to go, and then it’s home again.

And we did get a nice Friday shake-up — for many of us, the biggest earthquake we’ve ever felt (and since The Bahamas isn’t in any earthquake zone at all, most of us had no experience at all with trembling earth)! So there.

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