Ringplay Productions

The NDTC was in town this weekend.

I was supposed to post the flyer but never did.  Things are winding down for at work and life intervened.

Didn’t stop us from attending, however!

Some photographs, courtesy of Peter Ramsay:

"Crossings" - National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. Photo: Peter Ramsay

"Katrina" - National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. Photo: Peter Ramsay

"Katrina" - National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. Photo: Peter Ramsay

Check back for a full review.

Tags: Caribbean, dance, National Dance Theatre Company Jamaica

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This site’s worth watching.

What’s especially worth watching is the piece that is currently the second one on the page (which doesn’t appear to work the way blogs usually work, so prepare to scroll) – “An open letter to Prime Minister Harper From Wajdi Mouawad, Governor General Award-winning Canadian playwright; Knight of the Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres, France; Artistic Director of French Theatre, The National Arts Centre of Canada”.

Here’s one good bit:

Last week, your government reaffirmed its manner of governing unilaterally, this time on a domestic issue, in bringing about reductions in granting programs destined for the cultural sector. A mere matter of budgeting, you say, but one which sends shock waves throughout the cultural milieu –rightly or wrongly, as we shall see- for being seen as an expression of your contempt for that sector. The confusion with which your Ministers tried to justify those reductions and their refusal to make public the reports on the eliminated programs, only served to confirm the symbolic significance of that contempt. You have just declared war on the artists.

Now, as one functionary to another, this is the second thing that I wanted to tell you: no government, in showing contempt for artists, has ever been able to survive. Not one. One can, of course, ignore them, corrupt them, seduce them, buy them, censor them, kill them, send them to camps, spy on them, but hold them in contempt, no. That is akin to rupturing the strange pact, made millennia ago, between art and politics.

And here’s another:

Art and politics both hate and envy one another; since time immemorial, they detest each other and they are mutually attracted, and it’s through this dynamic that many a political idea has been born; it is in this dynamic that sometimes, great works of art see the light of day. Your cultural politics, it must be said, provoke only a profound consternation. Neither hate nor detestation, not envy nor attraction, nothing but numbness before the oppressive vacuum that drives your policies.

This vacuum which lies between you and the artists of Canada, from a symbolic point of view, signifies that your government, for however long it lasts, will not witness either the birth of a political idea or a masterwork, so firm is your apparent belief in the unworthiness of that for which you show contempt. Contempt is a subterranean sentiment, being a mix of unassimilated jealousy and fear towards that which we despise. Such governments have existed, but not lasted because even the most detestable of governments cannot endure if it hasn’t the courage to affirm what it actually is.

Go read the whole thing:

The Wrecking Ball | New Political Theatre.

Tags: politics, Theatre, world

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When I attended the meeting of the Regional Cultural Committee in Georgetown in April, Guyana’s CARIFESTA Secretariat promised us that each segment of every contingent would perform four times in Guyana — twice in Georgetown and twice outside the city. The regional Directors of Culture (who comprise the RCC) were not surprisingly sceptical. But I have to give props to Guyana — they kept their word. Everyone who could be was scheduled four times — not everyone performed four times, as not every venue was suitable. But the cast and crew of The Children’s Teeth rose to the occasion, and performed.

Queen’s College, Georgetown

QC Auditorium from the outside

Queen’s College, we were told, is the second best school in Guyana, the best being the Anna Regina Multilateral School in Essequibo.  The thing is, though (we were told) Queen’s College attracts the best students, because it’s a day school, it’s in Georgetown, and children can live with their parents.  Anna Regina is a boarding school and is up the Atlantic Coast at the mouth of the Essequibo River.  That being said, Queen’s College has an auditorium with a lot of seating capacity and a great big stage.  As a result, the QC Auditorium was the main staging site for The Children’s Teeth in Georgetown.

A view of the sound equipment, at the back of the hall, with a bit of the hall included

When we arrived there, we had to build the set.  It was raining that morning, pouring down, and the auditorium has a tin roof that leaks sometimes.  We got there, picked our way through the mud outside, and began working on the set.  The stage was big, bigger than the Dundas stage, but had no backstage or dressing rooms.  Someone had set up a tent outside (shades of the Centre for the Performing Arts) for a backstage, but the rain had battered that to the earth and the ground underneath it was soggy and impossible to use.  So Philip and Terrance set about creating a backstage using the set itself.

A view of the stage before the set was built

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Tags: Caribbean, CARIFESTA, Children's Teeth, Theatre

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The Children’s Teeth was featured at CARIFESTA X, and toured Guyana, set and all. The experience was invaluable — we performed in spaces we would not have chosen for ourselves, despite the existence of at least two enviable national Guyanese performance spaces, the like of which only our hotels provide in The Bahamas. The experience of performing in halls too live to let the audience truly hear the lines and in community centres where people come to see the only activity in the village was something we couldn’t get anywhere else — and it’s something that inspired me to consider seeing whether we can’t actually begin to tour our productions around the Caribbean. It’s costly, to be sure; but impossible? Convince me.

Anyway, watch this space.

Tags: Caribbean, CARIFESTA, Children's Teeth, Productions

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If I had a nose like Florine I wouldn’t go around saying Merry Christmas to anybody.

Excuse me for askin’, but how come she ain’ hire fo’ herself?
This isn’t a Christmas present.

What a same a wonderful girl like you never married.
I didn’t have any business coming in the car by myself with just you.
We ain’ had good coffee ‘roun’ heah since Idella pass.

Yo’ Mama in my business enough as it is.

I learn to drive on ice when I deliver milk for Avondale Dairy.
…fore I could stop her, yo’ Mama jump out de back do’ and run that man every which way.

Photos by Peter Ramsay

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Cyd Charisse, 86, dead.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Cyd Charisse, the long-legged Texas beauty who danced with the Ballet Russe as a teenager and starred in MGM musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, died Tuesday. She was 86.

…

Classically trained, she could dance anything, from a pas de deux in 1946’s “Ziegfeld Follies” to the lowdown Mickey Spillane satire of 1956’s “The Band Wagon” (with Astaire).

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Listen to the commercial

Tags: Da Spot, Productions

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