The implementation of the long-held plans of two Jamaican musicians for Caribbean classical music took a big step forward last weekend. Franklin E. Halliburton, musical director and conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jamaica (POJ), and...
Rodari Simpson is a fan of Caribbean musicians, one of no doubt millions around the world. He says, “I have always felt that Caribbean musicians and composers come with a special vibrance of sound that has not been given the platform it needs,”...
Halfway through its celebration of its 31st Anniversary, the Stella Maris Dance Ensemble (SMDE) presented The Vow, a dance about a love triangle involving a man and two women. Choreographed by Renee McDonald, the work has a twist in the tale that...
Pitchy Patchy, an explosion of colourful, stylish, dance, drama and music, is back for its third annual run. Hearing the news, hundreds of fans arrived at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, on Sunday for the revue’s gala opening. Created by...
The creative fiction that started life in 1925 as Porgy, a novel by DuBose Heyward, has undergone at least a dozen professional iterations, the most popular being a first-of-its-kind black opera, Porgy...
The 2024 dance programme of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) offers audiences mainly joyful items. Having opened at its accustomed venue, the Little Theatre, on July 19, the season closes on August 11. Fans have two weekends to enjoy...
“It was good. I enjoyed it.” That assessment and explanation of it came from a woman in the seat behind me as we prepared to leave the Courtleigh Auditorium on Sunday evening. Judging from the enthusiastic applause and cheers that were just dying...
A 15-minute video which seeks to preserve the memory of Ring Ding, Jamaica’s first television programme made specifically for children, was launched last Friday afternoon. Clap Yuself The Ring Ding Documentary was shown to a small audience of...
For about two hours, and to the delight of the audience, poems of all shapes, sizes and themes poured into the amphitheatre of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA), along Arthur Wint Drive, last Tuesday evening. The...
There was so much to see at the weekend concert by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jamaica (POJ) that you could have enjoyed it even if you were deaf. I refer not only to the beauty of the venue, the grounds of The University of the West Indies, Mona...
The St Mary Literary Festival had its successful inaugural staging at the Port Maria Anglican Church hall two Saturdays ago. Doubtlessly, the team organising it breathed a collective sigh of relief as, after months of hard work, which started last...
“Today we celebrate and properly recognise someone who embodies excellence,” was the proxy declaration of Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia Grange on Sunday. She was referring to Mervyn Morris, a man whose exemplary...
The energy hits you in the face and ears like blasts from a furnace. It starts with the shouted, albeit cheery, greeting from the black leather-clad deejay (Kiana Jackson). She goes on far too long, nearly 15 minutes. At least that’s how it was on...
“This award is wonderful ... marvellous,” veteran actor Oliver Samuels said as he received the Red Stripe Living Legend Award from the company’s brand manager, Nathan Nelms, on Friday night. The event took place at the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam...
The question-filled audience at the Temple of Light Centre for Spiritual Living on Fairway Avenue, St Andrew, last week Sunday heard about both the frustrations and the joys of trying to write and publish books. The process was ultimately “very...
Having nearly $1 million in prize money, the What’s Your Story Jamaica? storytelling competition is easily the island’s richest of its kind, and now in its third year, it’s becoming more popular. This positive news was given to the audience at this...
Theatre is bouncing back big time after the trials and tribulations of Covid. A couple of years ago, stages were dark, but this past weekend drama aficionados were able to see no less than six productions in the Corporate Area. Five of them...
Unsurprisingly, Balfour Anderson’s Christmas Day gift to Jamaica was a play. The title is Jamaican Hustlers, and it is now running on weekends at Green Gables Theatre, Cargill Avenue. What might be surprising, however, is the type of production he...
“It’s gripping from beginning to end.” That’s one patron’s feeling about Basil Dawkins’ latest play, Once Upon a Watch Night, playing at the Little Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Drive. The prolific playwright-producer, who has been staging plays at...
It took nearly two hours on Sunday for her audience to begin to plumb the professional depths of Jamaican-Canadian artist and educator, Dr Lillian Allen. And even at the end of the session, we knew precious little about her personal life. Gathered...
“Is that it!” exclaimed broadcaster Tony Patel. “It’s finished already?” It was 6:10 p.m. on Sunday, and we were in the St Luke’s Church, Cross Roads. The applause for the annual Advent concert presented by the Diocesan Festival Choir and Chamber...
The 2023 concert by the National Chorale of Jamaica (NCOJ) which delighted audiences at the Hope United Church, St Andrew, on Sunday was an example of “all’s well that ends well”. Owing to the heavy rains and flooding that the island has been...
“We wanted to do something good to honour his fiftieth,” said Jean-Paul Menou, the director of the production now running at the Edna Manley College’s School of Drama. He and I were leaving the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre on Saturday afternoon,...
If you want to know the causes of Jamaica’s major disease, crime and violence, go see Keith ‘Ginger’ Knight’s play Whiplash, now playing on weekends at Little Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue. If all the causes are not there, the fundamental ones...
The Father Ho Lung and Friends musical Ruby (also called Ruby Magdalene, to make an analogy with the Magdalene of the Bible) is making its third public appearance. The first two productions were decades ago and many years apart. It has improved...
