SUNDAY 1 OCTOBER, 2017 – UWI TODAY
7
DEPARTMENT OF CREATIVE AND FESTIVAL ARTS
In 1948, Beryl McBurnie
, a fire sign, created the Little
CaribTheatre. Already a renowned performer in NewYork,
she had chosen to return to Trinidad a few years earlier.
McBurnie was a dancer but she was also verymuch a teacher
and an innovator. She had grand designs for Caribbean art.
The Little Carib, the first of its kind space for dance and
theatre in the region, was integral to her plans. And though
the theatre suffered setbacks, it remains today a centre for
the performing arts. Its stewards understandwhat McBurnie
did—to thrive, the arts need a home.
On August 28, another home, a centre for teaching and
innovation in the arts, was opened. UWI St. Augustine’s
Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA), after
many years, has its new headquarters.
“The time has come to have a pre-professional space,”
says Jessel Murray, Head of the DCFA.
Like the artists and thinkers of the colonial era,
Mr. Murray views culture not only as a means of self-
actualisation, but also as a resource for the development
of the country and region. But where their focus was on
Caribbean identity, his is more material.
“We are training professionals here. Not only for
themselves, but in the current climate we have to add to
the country itself. We have to create our own kinds of
employment. I encourage young people to do what you
love. But my message to young people is that you have to
be able to love it but it also has to be economically viable.
This is the best part of the job we are all in. You can like it
and you can make a living from it,” he says.
Off-campus housing
It’s early days in the new semester and early days at the
new DCFA building. Sharing a space with the UWI Open
Campus on Gordon Street, the new building has its own
entrance on Cheeseman Avenue. Its lines are gentle, colours
warm, and lecture rooms expansive. The hallways are, for
the most, bare, except for the occasional student wandering
through, taking in the new space.
“My great stress reliever is watching the students on
the first day,” says Mr. Murray, “watching them go ‘oohh
and aahh’.”
For the DCFA Head and his staff, it has been a
challenging two-year journey to see their new headquarters
completed, with many challenges still remaining. Even so,
it is an improvement over their previous circumstances.
Founded 31 years ago at Agostini Street through the
work of the late Dr. Patricia Ismond, and led by dramatist
and educator Rawle Gibbons, the DCFA (then known as the
Creative Arts Centre) grew and spilled past its boundaries.
There are five units:Theatre Arts, Dance, Music, Visual Arts
and Carnival Studies.These units and the DCFA offices were
split between the Centre and Gordon Street. The building
at Agostini Street, although beautiful, is showing its age.
“As Head, having to go back and forth between the two
buildings was horrendous – dealing with traffic, running a
divided department and having administrative systems in
both places,” Mr. Murray says.
Now he’s focused on what the new space can bring:
“We are constantly trying to increase the professionalism
HOME AT LAST
Theatre and library to come next
B Y J O E L H E N R Y
and when you add professional spaces to professionalism
there is so much more you can do to push the envelope.”
He says the new building was phase one of a two-
phase plan. The second part consists of the construction
of a 400-person capacity full-service theatre and a library.
He says “a theatre is not an entertainment space. It
is a space for performance. Entertainment, as I define it,
is passive. It is background. Performance requires direct
engagement.”
The DCFA Head knows performance. As a music
director he has led both the National Steel Symphony
Orchestra and the National Sinfonia Orchestra. He is
musical director for the UWI Arts Chorale and UWI Steel,
multiple national award-winning orchestras. As an educator
at Smith College and Amherst Regional High School in
the US, he formed choirs and even a steelband. Those in
the UWI community who do not follow orchestral music
might know him best for his work as musical director for
the annual graduation ceremony. For many it’s the best part
of the ceremony.
“Graduation ceremony is one of the easiest things to
do,” he laughs. “It’s just a little vignette, a distraction from
all the speeches and ceremony.”
Easy is a relative term. As DCFA Head, lecturer and
musical director Mr. Murray is incredibly busy. At its most
extreme, he worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week.
He says, “In my family we tend to be workaholics.
When I became Head of DCFA I was still leading National
Steel. At that level, whenever the Prime Minister calls, you
say ‘yes sir’.”
This ethic guides how he leads the department: “There
is nothing else but focused hard work.”
Now more than ever, in the worsening economic
climate and where the decades-long calls for diversification
have become shrill, focused hard work seems essential for
artists. For years, academics such as Dr. Keith Nurse and Dr.
Jo-anne Tull (Lecturer and Coordinator in DCFA’s Carnival
Studies Unit) have advocated for the proper development of
creative industries. Policymakers have made limited moves
in that space. There have been some advances but there is
still much unrealised potential. The DCFA’s role is to give
students the capacity to develop the industry themselves.
“I’d like to see us continue on the path tomake students
more self-reliant,” Mr. Murray says. “We have to be able to
answer the question students ask of us all the time: what do
I do with my degree? We have to create some pathways for
them to be self-sufficient so they can succeed in their craft.”
Apart from the focus on rigour and professionalism, he
points to programmes such as theMaster of Arts in Creative
Design: Entrepreneurship.
But there is something else that DCFA can do to help
its students take ownership of a viable creative industry. In
fact, the Department has done it already.
While waiting for our interview, a student approached
me, asking for directions. She was lost in the smooth stone,
the glass doors and high ceilings of her new school, a school
for the arts, worthy of the arts.
“A theatre is not an entertainment
space. It is a space for performance.
Entertainment, as I define it,
is passive. It is background.
Performance requires direct
engagement.”
PHOTO: ATIBA CUDJOE
