Gadsby-Dolly: Carifesta XIV promotion will be ramping up

CULTURE Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said that promotion of Carifesta XIV, the region's première arts festival, will be ramping up in the next two weeks leading up to the start of the event on August 16.

"We have done as much and are doing as much as we can."

She was responding to comments by Bocas Lit Fest founder and festival director Marina Salandy-Brown in a Newsday column where she said that "Port of Spain may not be decked out with bright buntings, fluttering streamers and public notices hanging from lampposts and overhead in the streets, but Carifesta XIV is coming in just under two weeks, August 16-24.

"In our capital city, the main evidence of something big about to happen is the molehill that is growing daily in the Queen’s Park Savannah."

Gadsby-Dolly told Newsday in a telephone interview said there is a quite a large investment in advertising of Carifesta.

"If we want to spend more we can spend more but it is against the (country's) understood fiscal and fiscal constraints."

She said there have been advertisements all over print, television and social media as well as digital billboard all over the country and decking at the airport. She added there have been videos for Caribbean Airlines and Liat and on the show Caribbean Passport.

Gadsby-Dolly said the advertising was now focusing on individual shows or "signal events."

She also reported there have been road shows with non-traditional performers and many young people and Carifesta has partnered with the Bocas Lit Fest and TT Film Festival for events.

"We really reached out in many different areas with both traditional and social media in terms of networking and partnering."

She said in the next two weeks there will be more decorations at the Carifesta XIV hub, the Queen's Park Savannah, with the building out of the Grand Market, which showcases country booths, trade booths, food, art, craft and many cultural aspects of each island in our region.

"The entire TT should be sensitised to the presence of Carifesta."

Carifesta XIV in a release reported that 200 events are scheduled across performing spaces in TT between August 16-25.

"Audiences will be immersed in the dance, theatre, film, food, visual and literary arts and of course music of the region, as delegates from 20 countries join TT to celebrate the arts. Every genre of music has been programmed into what is certainly a most diverse repertoire of Caribbean music, and TT’s national instrument, the steel pan, takes centre stage."

The official opening ceremony is preceded by a parade around the Queen’s Park Savannah featuring all the participating nations, including the TT delegation, "who undoubtedly will be chipping to the sound of steelpan."

The first signal event will be By Women Only, For Everyone on August 17 at Naparima Bowl. The cast of 21 women include Natasha Joseph on the steelpan along with "phenomenal performances from the best in the region" including Xavier Strings, Sally Sagram, Rennette Desir from Haiti and Claudette Peters out of Antigua and Barbuda.

The release said the national instrument will truly be integrated into all aspects of the festival including: performances in the daily concert series at the streets of the Caribbean Grand Market; TT’s National Steel Symphony Orchestra providing all the musical accompaniment for Moon on a Rainbow Shawl at the National Academy for the Performing Arts on August 17; , two of TT's top men of steel, Dane Gulston and Johann Chuckaree, performing with David Rudder, Mungal Patasar and Pantar for Rhythms of the Caribbean at Queen's Hall on August 18; and Riddim and Steel Sunday, the second in the Forever Young concert Series, at the Bishop Anstey High School, also on August 18.