‘Allyuh come een!’ If you like soca and calypso, Blaxx (Dexter Stewart) has made you happy, jump, wave, sing, laugh, knock a glass, hug a stranger, tap your feet or spread your hands and let go at least once. In an industry with an insane annual refresh rate, quick to …
Read More »Dear Editor: Without deferred 2022 Carnival, T&T risks losing thousands of regular tourist visitors
“[…] The truth is that culture and, moreso, the business of Carnival has lost, both in terms of revenue generation and reputation, over the course of these two missed years. “Our refusal to even so much as consider hosting a festival this year will only be seen as an opportunity …
Read More »Daly Bread: The Carnival beyond 2022 discussion and calypso’s changing context
Views reportedly expressed by the well-qualified presenters at a webinar, entitled ‘Hosting and managing the Carnival Experience in Trinidad and Tobago in 2022 and Beyond’, converged with much of what I have been writing concerning Carnival and cultural development matters over several years, including last Sunday. The Trinidad Express newspaper …
Read More »Dr Frankson: How nostalgia, experience and mixed visions can derail ‘Reimagined Carnival’
“[…] These naysayers are largely ‘old’ people, not necessarily in age, but in their thinking. Old people are inclined to believe that their glory days were achieved with capabilities that have somehow been lost. “Blind to the present levels of care, comfort and convenience that were unimaginable in their youth, …
Read More »Daly Bread: Continuing inaction in culture and Carnival, and its cost to T&T’s creative sector
‘Covid-19 will force us to re-build our economy,’ I wrote nearly two years ago, in April 2020. ‘We should place our vibrant performing arts at the core of the recovery agenda, not merely with the disproportionate focus on one transitory carnival season, which we may not even have in 2021. …
Read More »Daly Bread: Subversion by subvention; how state companies like the NCC make mas
Our country has been widely shamed internationally by the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard’s fatal shooting of an illegal migrant baby. The use of the label ‘accident’, the premature ducking of responsibility and due process as well as the crude, partisan political exchanges have compounded the shame. For the moment, …
Read More »Daly Bread: Stop mamaguying us about a ‘safe zone’ Carnival, and tell us what the ‘taste’ costs
The government has decided to permit gatherings to participate in the limited forms of Carnival celebrations that it has belatedly decided to promote this season. Perhaps it should drop the ‘safe zones’ pretence. Such zones may not be workable with the freeing-up and ‘leggo’ of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. There …
Read More »Write Start (16-18): Brace for bacchanal! Kyla-Marie Singh sees protests and price spikes in Carnival 2022
“[…] I do think that there would be a lot of controversy specifically from ‘anti-vaxxers’ about non-vaccinated persons not being able to partake in these festivities—and this might cause a problem in society at that appointed time. “[…] There would possibly a price increase in all areas and industries that …
Read More »Write Start (16-18): Jab before ‘jab jab’; Tsai-Ann Lewis says vaccination cards, not rags, will dominate Carnival 2022
“[…] Carnival will most definitely be for those who are vaccinated, as most things have or are becoming. “[…] Before the event formally begins, persons will need to wear their Covid-19 vaccination cards and a form of identification around their necks to ensure that they are permitted to partake in …
Read More »Write Start (16-18): ‘Health before jollification’; Ogechi Uche Nweze imagines a socially distanced Carnival 2022
“[…] The first change that comes to mind is the full-on dancing on the streets. It is the norm for people to gyrate on each other, sweaty bodies glistening under the sun as they move and sway like branches in the wind to the beat of hypnotising soca music, throwing …
Read More »Dr Rowley: ‘We have reached a critical crossroad…’ (Full address)
“[…] The current seven-day rolling average of positive cases, as of 22 November 2021, is 518 cases per day… This represents the longest consistent period of increasing rolling average manifested since the plateau of cases began in July. “[…] As the demand on health care resources increases, we may have …
Read More »Should T&T government set Carnival 2022 as our pandemic end goal?
“There is a difference between managing and leading, and so far the government has been doing the best it can to manage this crisis,” said goodtalkTnT director Peter Gales. “Now, it’s time to lead us out of it, by giving us a finish line we can see—and a plan to get there…” …
Read More »