Re-awakening the Caribbean Spirit at Sherzando Panyard!

"I must say that no one who attended the Commonsense Convois yesterday would have missed a tall man in white wearing a fedora who was in the middle of other dancers in white! Certainly, an impressive and memorable sight! Congratulations on your involvement in the successful enterprise that was the Convois yesterday – the gateway to a week of celebration for the Lloyd Best Insitute.  Kindly extend the Department’s congratulations to all of the students who participated in such a grand way."

Jessel Murray

* Mr. Jessel Murray is the Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Creative and Festival Arts, Faculty of Humanities and Education in the The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad, W.I.  Quote from an e ail sent to Dr. Morejon on March 19, 2012 in recognition for his participation in the Reawakeing of the Spirit of the Caribbean project.

Conference Surveying the Past, Mapping the Future.

The University College of the Cayman Islands and the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies.

Paper title: “Caribbean Carnivals: The Distinct Performances of Non-independence and Emancipation.”

LINK: http://www.ucciconference.ky/

Re-awakening the Caribbean Spirit

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Rhythms to

revive the spirit

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Music from cultures across the Caribbean, mixed with Three Canal, Steelpan, Mungal Patasar, and the voices of the Freetown Collective will come together in a single production designed to lift the Caribbean and launch the Common Sense Convois later this month. 

"Re-awakening the Caribbean spirit" is the title of an original production that will also feature original music by Raff Robertson with choreography and management by Cuban dance lecturer  Jorge Morejon and artistic direction by Rawle Gibbons.  It takes place on Sunday March 18 at 6:00 pm in the Scherzando panyard in Curepe. 

The "Re-awakening" is a unique event designed to evoke the fullness of the Caribbean cultural experience and display the richness of the tapestry of its many strands.  It will represent the many languages of the Caribbean as well as the variety of rhythms in a broad sweep that will include the expressions of the First Peoples right across to that of today's youth.

Tickets are priced at $150 and are available at 663 5463; 662 9023.  For further information on the Common Sense Convois, please go to www.lloydbestinstitute.org

Fragments / Dance Plethora

UWI 8 Ensemble in the Coco Dance Festival

UWI 8 Ensemble.

Jeannine Jones (right), Nikeisha Benjamin-Richardson (left) and Judy-Ann LeMaitre (back)

UWI 8 Ensemble’s collaborative choreography, born out of ideas posed by Dance Lecturer Jorge Luis Morejón and and movement propositions developed by the dancers, turned into a dance piece they titled Fragments. The Contemporary Choreographers’ Collective (nicknamed COCO ), a group of independent choreographers that offers performance support for choreographers working in unconventional ways in Trinidad and Tobago, saw the UWI 8’s work and invited the Ensemble to participate in COCO 2011’s celebration of “national, regional and international dance communities” (Creative Caribbean Network). This is how UWI 8 Ensemble, a group of dance students from the Creative and Festival Arts Center at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, became part of COCO, the host of “multidisciplinary and culturally diverse programs,” which establish “a contemporary artists’ network” at the same time that pushes “the boundaries of dance practice.” All the students who were involved in the production of Fragments at the Little Carib Theatre in Port of Spain express their appreciation and gratitude to Dave Williams, Nicole Wesley, Nancy Herrera and Sonja Dumas, the organizers of the festival, for their vision and uninterrupted commitment with the development of the art of dance in the Caribbean.

LINKS:

http://www.creativecaribbeannetwork.com/person/19319/en

http://www.facebook.com/pages/COCO-Dance-Festival/182281215175384

Jeannine Jones

Jeannine Jones

 Judy-Ann LeMaitre

Hilary Pierre

Jeannine Jones (back) and Joanna Charles

Crystal Letren

UWI 8 Ensemble