Originally written for and published in Caribbean Beat magazine in 2007 It’s Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day in Trinidad, but instead of taking a day off, Ella Andall is doing what she always does—singing. It’s a 90-minute drive from her home in Arima to the southern town of Rio Claro, where Andall is slated to sing. She’s not sure what the set-up will be, whether there will … Continue reading Ella Andall’s Earth Music | Caribbean Beat
Originally written for and published in Caribbean Beat magazine, in 2007 There’s a small arts revolution taking place in Trinidad and Tobago, with roots in the Centre for Creative and Festival Arts (CCFA) at the University of the West Indies, and branches reaching as far as Europe, Africa, and North America. Officially launched in 1994, Arts-in-Action (AiA) is a public education programme. It is the brainchild of … Continue reading Ready for action | Caribbean Beat
I have a kind of psychic claustrophobia. A fear of anything that confines me to a prescribed amount of space in the world. Labels, check-boxes, baggage, stuff like that. I’m so averse to it I wrote a one-woman play (soap box) about it called, appropriately, Pack Light. Trinidad is so small that no matter what school you went to, people tend to tote — or try to bestow others … Continue reading “Prestige School” Ponderings
Originally written for and published in the Caribbean Review of Books (CRB), November 2006. There is a sketch next to Trinidadian Dominique Le Gendre’s Bird of Night programme note which captures graphically her own complex identity: individual, peer, family, national, collective, Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, Martinique, and Trinidad. As is perhaps the case with every Caribbean artist, the negotiation between all these identities finds expression through her creative … Continue reading Bird of Night (2006) takes flight | Caribbean Review of Books
