"Art has always been the most honest language the Caribbean has spoken."

With those words, Professor Krisha Marcano challenged her audience to rethink the role of artists in shaping Caribbean society, setting the tone for an evening that celebrated culture not as an accessory to nationhood, but as one of its foundations.

Academics, creatives, dancers and patrons of the arts filled the Learning Resource Centre Auditorium at The UWI St Augustine Campus on Saturday, June 27, for the fourth annual Rex Nettleford Distinguished Lecture. Held under the theme “Dancing the Nation into Being”, the event honoured the legacy of the late Professor Nettleford, renowned Caribbean scholar, choreographer, and Vice Chancellor Emeritus of The UWI, whose work championed the power of culture to transform Caribbean societies.

This year's keynote speaker, Professor Marcano, Dean of Theatre at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, brought that vision home.

Born in Queens, New York, but raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Professor Marcano reflected warmly on the country that shaped her artistic journey. Crediting her education at the Caribbean School of Dance and the wider Caribbean for her success, she spoke affectionately about home, even joking about her continued craving for bake and shark.

The programme opened with welcome remarks from Mr Jessel Murray, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA), Deputy Dean of Distance and Outreach at the Faculty of Humanities and Education, and Programme Co-ordinator for the BA in Film. Greetings on behalf of the Rex Nettleford Foundation were delivered by former Prime Minister of Jamaica Mr PJ Patterson. The evening also featured a performance of O' Joy, choreographed by Joanna Charles and performed by Tueron McKellar, Jade Bishop, and Kyla Perkins, as well as a vocal interlude by Joshua Goolcharan.

‘This is where it cooks’

Drawing from history, personal experience and cultural practice, Professor Marcano explored how dance and artistic expression preserve the stories of Caribbean people.

Reflecting on the experience of enslaved people, she noted that while so much had been taken from them, they carried their histories within their bodies. Traditions such as Bélé, Shango, Moko Jumbie and Limbo became living archives through which memory, identity, and resistance endured.

“It's a callaloo, we are a stew,” she said. “This is where it cooks; this is where it begins.” The arts, she argued, continue to preserve the region's collective memory while shaping its future. Rejecting the false divide between creativity and intellect, Professor Marcano insisted that artists are indispensable to national development.

“Art is not separate from nationhood,” she said. As artificial intelligence reshapes industries across the world, she asked the audience to consider the qualities technology cannot replicate: imagination, interpretation, ethics, uncertainty and embodiment.

“Artists fail publicly and continue to create,” she said, describing uncertainty not as weakness but as one of creativity's greatest strengths.

Yet despite possessing qualities essential for innovation and leadership, she questioned why artists remain largely absent from national decision-making.

Professor Marcano also celebrated the progress of the Caribbean's creative industries, highlighting initiatives including The Cocoa Dance Festival, Metamorphosis Dance Company, the New Play Festival, FilmTT's tax rebate negotiation, and the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival celebrating its 20th anniversary as evidence of a region rich with creative potential.

‘You iterate and fail. You ideate and try again.’

She cautioned, however, that talent alone is not enough.

“The argument that art cannot be a serious economic investment is a myth and has cost the Caribbean dearly,” she said, noting that the global creative economy generates more than US$2.25 trillion annually. Rather than competing within a culture of scarcity, she encouraged artists to strengthen regional partnerships and create opportunities for sustainable careers after graduation.

She also challenged creatives to see themselves as entrepreneurs.

“You begin with nothing and create something from it,” she said. “You iterate and fail. You ideate and try again. Read the room and adapt in real time. You move people to buy, to listen, to come back, to win, to think, to feel, to watch, to read.”

The difference, she suggested, is not in the work itself, but in how artists have been taught to value it.

Looking ahead, Professor Marcano called on governments, educators and institutions to invest in arts education from an early age, develop creative job policies, equip artists with entrepreneurial skills, and include creatives in leadership and national policymaking. She also underscored the importance of harnessing the influence of Caribbean artists across the diaspora.

Bringing the lecture to an emotional close, Marcano reflected on what it meant to return to the region that had shaped her life.

“Coming back here is full circle in a way that makes me full,” she said. “It makes me grounded, it makes me determined, and it makes me strong today. Yesterday, I felt diminished, but today, I am ready.”

After a brief pause, she added with a smile, “I still need a doubles though.”

The packed lecture theatre erupted in laughter before responding with sustained applause.

Campus Principal Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine presented Professor Marcano with a plaque of appreciation in recognition of her contribution to this year's distinguished lecture.

As the fourth annual Rex Nettleford Distinguished Lecture came to a close, Marcano's message echoed the vision of the man it honours: that the arts are not peripheral to Caribbean development, but central to it. The hope is that other institutions will commit to advancing scholarship, culture, and public dialogue while challenging a new generation of creatives to imagine and help shape the future of the Caribbean.

To view the Rex Nettleford Distinguished Lecture, visit UWI TV on YouTube at www.youtube.com/@UWITVGlobal.