COME HEAR THE NATION’S GENIUSES SPEAK
The nation is invited to come, hear, and interact with its greatest artisans on Tuesday 5th June 2012 from 5- 8pm at City Hall, Port of Spain. On that day the Elder geniuses of Pan, Mas, Ramleela, Hosay, Tailoring, and other Trinbagonian crafts will speak to the nation in a Town Hall setting- and take our questions. The occasion will be the second staging of ‘Inheritance: The Elders Lecture Series’. For the next couple of months- on the last Wednesday of every month- 7 of Trinidad and Tobago’s Elder geniuses will gather to talk about their careers and their traditions. This forum allows Elders to speak amongst themselves and across traditions as to common goals, dreams, problems, and solutions.
The first of the series was staged on Wednesday 25th April and featured the great bandleaders of T&T music. This included: Errol Ince of Brass Circle fame; indo-fusion pioneer Krishna ‘Teddy’ Bissembhar of D Rampersard Orchestra; and Clive Zanda of kaiso-jazz fame. Bandleader Joey Lewis was unable to attend due to illness as was Mungal Patasar. All the ‘Inheritance’ sessions- including audience responses- will be filmed for re-broadcast.
The Elder Lecture Series is being staged by The Artists’ Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT) in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and the Economy in commemoration of Trinidad and Tobago’s 50th Anniversary of Independence. It is an opportunity to hear with our own ears the stories of how our Master artists did what they did against all odds…
The Lecture Series is part of ACTT’s program of events for 2012- deemed ‘The Year of Memory’ because this year marks the last our nation will have with its surviving Golden Age Generation. Because it is a race against time in terms of recording and passing on Elder knowledge ACTT has launched a series of initiatives to rescue the nation’s disappearing Memory. They include: Project Memory- an international-standard best-practice museum-grade exhibition on the History of T&T’s Art and Culture. This will include the opening of the Brian Honore Audio/Visual Recording Unit which captures memoirs of our greatest citizens. This has been initiated by a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank and the Commonwealth Foundation, with sponsorship from: BPTT; the Division of Aging from the Ministry of the People; and the Information Division.
ACTT will also soon launch- in partnership with First Citizens Bank- the first phase of The Guild of Masters- an initiative to pass on Elder skill to a new generation. Yet another initiative is the Indigenous Radio Programme which airs from 8pm-10pm every Thursday night on 91.1FM Talk City. This show is dedicated to mainstreaming local underground music like Trini-Rock, Trini-Reggae, Trini-R&B, Trini-Electronica, Trini-Hip-Hop, Rapso and much more. The programme aims to expose the rich variety of local music outside of Soca, Calypso and Chutney that is censored from the airwaves.
The Elder Lecture Series is a perfect after-work lime for the mind and the public is invited to make notes in their diary of the next lectures in the series: local artisan Masters on Tuesday June 5th; local Humor geniuses on Wednesday June 27th; local Master artists on Wednesday July 25th; and local TV and Film geniuses on Wednesday August 22nd. This is a unique opportunity for the nation to engage its geniuses on matters concerning Culture, Art, and Trinidad and Tobago’s unique cultural Legacy.
For further information or bookings, you may contact Rubadiri Victor at 797-0949 or at rubadiri@gmail.com and Sheldon Manoo at 394-3672 or at straceysbmanoo@yahoo.com
