SUNDAY 3 JUNE, 2018 – UWI TODAY
9
COVER STORY: DCFA – CELEBRATING CREATIVE ARTS
Carmina Burana, the recent classical music
production
performed by students at the Department
of Creative andFestival Arts (DCFA), was one of several
final year UWI creative productions to challenge
and inspire students in remarkable collaborations
of performance artistry. The play The Crucible was
another major public production, performed over two
weekends in April.
It is a little-known fact that the DCFA performs
some 40 productions every year involving talented
students andmembers of the public.These productions
are all done in the absence of a proper theatrical
performance stage on campus, yet remain consistently
professional, world-class works of musicianship,
theatre, dance and other combinations of performing
arts done at different theatres and venues throughout
the country as these become available for bookings.
DCFA Head of Department and Senior Lecturer
Jessel Murray is justifiably proud of his students’
accomplishments, and has settled in well into the
new administrative headquarters of the DCFA at the
Cheesman Building in St Augustine, located in a quiet
side road off Gordon Street. The new building opened
for business just about a year ago, and already the
confluence of different creative skills there is producing
synergies and artistic collaborations that previously
were quite rare.
Exploring indigenous Caribbean as well as
international performance forms and genres, the
DCFA aims to produce well-rounded students who
can include interesting, challenging artistic work in
their repertoire and performance portfolios as they
move on to develop their careers.
DCFA students performed Carmina Burana, for
instance, for one night on Sunday, April 8 this year
at the Lord Kitchener Auditorium at the National
Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain. It
was the culmination of much hard work and artistic
collaboration spanning steelpan and piano music,
choral singing, solos, percussion and dance. Carmina
Burana is the Latin for “Songs from Beuern,” and is a
secular oratorio or cantata composed by the German
musician Carl Orff who was inspired by irreverant,
satirical medieval poems from the 12th century. The
word “cantata” comes from the Italian word “cantare”,
to sing, and refers to a vocal composition with
instrumental accompaniment in movements, often
involving a choir. The form developed from Italian
madrigals.
The songs and music of the Carmina Burana
cantata can have an epic quality, soaring to crescendos
or floating like haunting hymns in the air, with
an undeniable sense of the marvels, beauties and
tempestuous devils of the medieval imagination. It is
a staple in the classical music repertoire. Students who
may never have been previously exposed to or aware of
this kind of music became educated about it through
the DCFA this year, while also learning valuable skills
in musical and vocal collaboration, rehearsal, timing,
discipline and artistic production. The actual show
combined forces of the UWI Arts Chorale, UWI Arts
Percussion, UWI Arts Steel, and vocal soloists all
conducted by Jessel Murray. It also included a special
guest, the UWI Arts Dance Ensemble, while Dr
Jeannine Remy conducted the UWI Arts Percussion
in separate works for percussion and Khion De las
led the UWI Arts Steel. It was a concert to remember.
“I call the DCFA a coalition of units,” explained
Jessel Murray in a recent interview at his office. “We
have three performing units: music, theatre arts
and dance. They interface with the public through
performances. Then there is Visual Arts, which does
exhibitions and work in fine arts and design. And
then there is Carnival Studies, about the business,
creativity and sustainability of Carnival, which holds
two symposia a year, and which hosts the Old Yard
every Sunday preceding Carnival Sunday.”
“There is also a Masters in Creative Design and
Entrepreneurship, available in any of the disciplines,
open to people with a first degree as well as to any
skilled person with a good portfolio or repertoire.”
Murray, in addition to his roles as musical
conductor of choral and orchestral masterworks and
musical theatre director of many productions for Must
Come See Productions, has been leading the DCFA
since 2011, and says it has been an extremely rewarding
experience for him as the department raises its public
profile and role as a creative thinktank. He spoke about
the changes in the department in recent times as it
moved to its new location and had to streamline ways
of doing business, rolling out courses, internal staff
Soloist and Theatre Major Anika Ward performing
Inutk
accompanied by the UWI Arts Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Khion DeLas.
PHOTO: VIBERT MEDFORD
redeployments, and communicating better with
colleagues, partners and communitymembers. And
he expressed a deep gratitude and satisfaction with
the new headquarters of the DCFA at Cheesman
Avenue, while fervently hoping that Phase Two of
DCFA development plans – the construction of a
campus theatre – would soon take place. It is one
of his long-held dreams.
One of the strengths of a DCFA music
education, in particular, is the sheer number
of ensembles which exist for students to hone
their skills. Ensembles are performance units
which music students are required to take part
in, in addition to their regular studies. Under the
umbrella brand of UWI ARTS, there are ensembles
for choral singing, steelpan, percussion, guitar, jazz,
Sinfonia, Indian classical music, wind instruments
and African drumming. Students are assessed both
during rehearsals throughout the year and during
final event performances.
Murray said the school benefited this year
from the generous bequest of a baby grand piano
owned by Dr Anne Marion Osborne, a dedicated
music lecturer and the first coordinator of UWI St
Augustine’s music Unit. She worked at the DCFA
for more than 25 years and died this January.
The new DCFA building headquarters at
Cheesman Avenue opened for operations in
August 2017 and includes two well-appointed
dance studios, three teaching classrooms, two
technical theatre rooms, and offices for lecturers and
administrative staff. It was built as a public-private
partnership with considerable generous funding
help from Republic Bank as well as fromThe UWI.
Plans for a campus theatre will likely follow a similar
public-private partnership funding model.
Celebrating
CREATIVE
ARTS
B Y S H E R E E N A N N A L I
