For the Reckord | 'Long Distance' celebrates UTech's 60th anniversary

Ironically, when the University of Technology was the College of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST), there were no courses in the arts for which students could get academic credit. Yet, soon after the name and status change in 1995 (to become closer to its original 1958 name - the Jamaica Institute of Technology), accredited arts courses started springing up.

Now, there is a vibrant Centre for the Arts, a well-stocked sculpture park, and numerous students enrolled in accredited dance, drama, art and music courses taught by noted practitioners of the disciplines. Those students featured with distinction in a pageant-like production - Long Distance, staged last week Wednesday in the Alfred Sangster Auditorium on the university's main campus at Papine, St Andrew, in celebration of the institution's 60th anniversary.

Scripted and directed by actress-playwright Gracia Thompson, the production tells its story in various forms of visual and performing arts. So the dancing includes soca, jonkunnu and pop; the drama includes skits and dub poetry; the music includes singing and performances by a pop and a steel band, and the decor was designed by art students.

There was also a parade of huge effigies of politicians (Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante) and the Queen, all who played important roles in the institution's history. Colours - all those of the rainbow, and then some, were everywhere - on stage in the costumes, and offstage in the lights illuminating the show.

Too much?

One could criticise the production for trying to do too much. It was slated to last for two hours, but its 33 items pushed the closing time well beyond that. The audience was told that participating students were being graded on the quality of their input, so perhaps all the items were necessary.

The show opened with drumming by about a dozen persons playing African drums. They were accompanied by a narrator with a very dramatic voice - Tanya Sutherland, who invited the audience to join her on the institution's journey through time. As she spoke, relevant images were projected on to the backdrop behind her.

Other images projected throughout the show were not only informative, but often quite beautiful. They were selected, Thompson told me, to highlight both the university's achievements, and the country's development - which is no doubt why some of the slides took us into the last century. A magnificent picture of tramcars in Kingston of yesteryear was particularly memorable.

Thompson said she deliberately placed the university's rise in the broad context of Jamaica "emerging from being a British colony with the need to empower our country with our homegrown skilled workers and engineers, to the political upheaval and the rise of inner-city communities, to the new technological age". She saw parallels between the goal of the country and that of the university.

At the same time, she got up close and personal with imagined stories about individual Jamaicans involved with the institution. Thus a rural couple Ezra and Miriam (played by Robert Richards and Shanell Jackson) discovered that their daughter has unexpectedly left the farm to go off to college.

Ezra promptly decides he will go and fetch her, but Miriam is not sure that's a good idea. Ezra's search takes him from country to Papine - in all, three generations are shown relating to the institution.

While the students' contributions were generally good, the audience responded most enthusiastically to the music by the pop and steel bands. That's because, first, the playing was of a high quality, and second, they played some 'classics' that had the audience rocking - among them: Sweet and Dandy, Book of Rules, What a Bam Bam, Betta Mus Come, Satta Massagana and the universally acclaimed One Love.