Let's talk Tobago

With just days to go before the climax of the Tobago Heritage Festival, activists say they are deeply concerned about the future of culture on the island.

In fact, they stressed the need for a "meeting of the minds" to return Tobago's culture to the stature it once enjoyed.

Elvis Radgman, who said he has worked in culture for the past three decades, alongside other individuals, believes Tobago's culture is regressing under the current management of the annual heritage festival.

The festival is managed by the Tobago Festivals Commission, chaired by George Leacock.

Referring to the festival's opening ceremony on July 12 at Shaw Park Cultural Complex, Radgman told Sunday Newsday: "I saw, under this current management of the festival, us regressing 25 years."

The night's production, directed by Olimall Gordon-Holder, featured an American couple visiting Tobago for the first time. During the visit, they are befriended by two guides and exposed to elements of the island's cultural heritage, including obeah.

The Pembroke activist said during his years of involvement in the heritage festival, the opening night attracted close to 300 cultural practitioners from across Tobago. He added this is no longer the case.

"They (practitioners) were very interested and excited to be a part of this grand affair. But I believe that because of poor management, we are allowing something that was very sacred to us to become decimated. It is hard to believe that we have decimated it."

Asked if he felt there can be a turnaround, Radgman said: "I am sure there can be. The body that is currently managing the festival, they have to report to somebody and they fall under a division (Culture, Tourism and Transportation). And there are people, who, that is their job to treat with culture and lend support accordingly."

Claiming the festival is being micro-managed, Radgman said: "What we saw on opening night is what we will see happening to many of the things we have happening on the island."

Radgman scoffed at the notion the festival aspect of the culture is being affected by the economic downturn.

"People will raise the point that the country was going through a recession and we had to do more with less but anybody who is in the cultural arena, like myself, we could do a lot better with less."

He added: "It is about putting the minds together. The thing with creativity is that it does not lie with any one person because I might have an idea and when I pair my idea with yours, we can create something beautiful.

"But if those approaches are just kicked out the door, if the individuals who have the vested institutional knowledge and the vested creative and otherwise experience that could add value to a product negate it from the conversation, you will always get these kinds of outcomes."

Radgman said despite his views on culture "I hope we get it right.

"Getting it right is not about the festival commission getting it right. It is for even people like myself and others, the practitioners."

He if those who are involved in culture believe their traditions are under attack, it is their responsibility to defend it and not be bullied.

"And our people, we have a way in which we could easily appear like we are being bullied. We just go silent and don't say anything. It takes people like myself and others to come out and say.

"If you feel your thing is being compromised, speak out on it because sometimes is only when the voices come together, people really hear and I think right now people are ready to be heard," Radgman added.

Another leading cultural advocate, Jesse Taylor, said, he, too, has worked on many opening night productions in the heritage festival and accomplished more with less.

"If I am to look at where we started, which was, needless to day, very ordinary, without a lot of infrastructure and modernisation, we had done a lot more with a lot less."

Taylor said the Tobago House of Assembly used significant resources to train people in theatre, dance and music.

"But, if I were to use that as a yardstick, I think we have not gone very far. Perhaps it would be better if I say that we either in the same place or we in a strange place, which I consider to be quite unfortunate because a lot of people died to save this culture, gave up what they could have for a better life to make it happen.

"I am not sure we could have been the recipients or the beneficiaries if what could have been, had a lot of things been done differently, using the resources we have on the island."

Taylor described as "less than a travesty," the heritage festival's opening night.

"It is a poor reflection of the national culture, which we hope to attract people to the island based on the storyline. I consider it to be unfortunate. Now we (Tobago) have so much more and we continue to get so much less."

Like Radgman, Taylor believes there has to be compromise among those who feel they can contribute to restoring the island's culture.

"At the moment, the commission is the unit that is largely responsible. It is an arm of the THA or the Division of Culture, Tourism and Transportation but there is need to have much more fusion. And so there is not enough meeting of the minds in going forward."

He added: "I would certainly suggest there be some hand, out of the powers that be, that saves it going forward, what is presented and how it may be received and understood by people who either know, don't know and more importantly, those who visit our shores of these islands."

Taylor said he is not sure the message conveyed in the opening night production would make anybody want to come to Tobago "because you would constantly feel there is someone out there to rob you on the beach or somebody want to wok obeah on you."

He added: "The challenge is how do we use the other aspects, our flora, our fauna, to celebrate what Tobago has to offer and how to integrate that as we move into the world space so that there are opportunities to grow into an economic space for islanders who are basically entrepreneurs dependent on the people who come, if they are not part of the process?"

The Tobago Heritage Festival continues today with goat and crab racing at the Buccoo Integrated Facility from 3 pm. The festival ends on Thursday, Emancipation Day, with a stage show and street procession from the Pigeon Point Heritage Park.