Ja­nine Charles-Far­ray

As the dust of Car­ni­val last lap set­tles and the na­tion re­turns to its reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled pro­gramme the Bois Acad­e­my of T&T (BATT) is just get­ting to work on its na­tion-wide school and com­mu­ni­ty tour across the coun­try.

Stick fight­ing in T&T is usu­al­ly a pas­sion­ate niche event, em­braced over the years by pock­ets of loy­al fans and at­ten­dees in spe­cif­ic vil­lages across the cen­tral and south­land.

Its pop­u­lar­i­ty over the years has cer­tain­ly grown thanks to a surge of main­stream cul­tur­al ref­er­ences in ca­lyp­sos, and doc­u­men­tary fea­ture films such as No Bois Man No Fraid along with the tire­less work of the BATT. This month and on­ward, the art of stick fight­ing will be ex­tend­ed be­yond the Car­ni­val sea­son to a full na­tion-wide work­shop tour.

The resur­gence of stick fight­ing as a dis­ci­pline and as the on­ly au­then­tic mar­tial art form in T&T will see the pin­na­cle of its re­nais­sance with the avail­abil­i­ty of a se­ries of school tours where co-Founders of BATT and pro­fes­sion­al fight­ers, Kee­gan Tay­lor and Ron­del Ben­jamin will vis­it a se­ries of schools and com­mu­ni­ties to share their knowl­edge of the art form, its ori­gins and method­olo­gies.

Ac­cord­ing to Tay­lor, the cur­ricu­lum for these Kalin­da or stick fight­ing ses­sions will be about the ba­sics of the art form. "To give you an idea of what we in­tend to teach, we are look­ing to give stu­dents and teach­ers alike di­rect and phys­i­cal ex­po­sure to the his­to­ry art and cul­ture of Kalin­da thor­ough the jour­ney of songs or 'lavways', drum­ming, stick fight­ing and the danc­ing it­self."

The work­shops will be held by Ben­jamin and Tay­lor to­geth­er, along with a team of bois men from the Acad­e­my in­clud­ing Arn­im Coop­er, Noland Cum­mings and David Brown.

The method of teach­ing will in­clude sto­ry-telling and tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters such as the Jab Jab and Pier­rot Grenade among oth­ers. This, ac­cord­ing to Tay­lor, is all in keep­ing with the Bois Acad­e­my's ob­jec­tive to dis­perse in­for­ma­tion about the art form to the world at large in a pos­i­tive and ex­cit­ing man­ner. "Our method of trans­fer­ring the in­for­ma­tion is go­ing to be in­ter­ac­tive and dy­nam­ic, al­low­ing chil­dren to be­come part of the cul­ture help­ing them to ac­quire an ac­tu­al feel for the art form."

The class­es have been held in Tabaquite Com­mu­ni­ty as well as in Moru­ga and Bar­rack­pore Sec­ondary schools next week. Stick fight­ing class­es will al­so be­gin at the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) from April 1st and on­ward, with class­es every Sat­ur­day from 12 noon to 1 pm.

BATT ad­vis­es that Kalin­da is not about ran­dom acts of vi­o­lence, it is a sys­tem of dis­ci­pline and self-man­age­ment that takes hard work and pa­tience. The fo­cus of the Acad­e­my has been to pro­tect the liv­ing tra­di­tion of Kalin­da through archiv­ing, im­mer­sion, dis­sem­i­na­tion and seek­ing na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for the liv­ing Mas­ters of the art form.

Over the years they have used strate­gies such as lec­tures, sem­i­nars and work­shops, their lat­est be­ing a well-re­ceived and live­ly pre­sen­ta­tion at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed TEDx Trinidad and To­ba­go event in 2013.

For more in­for­ma­tion on how you can host the Kalin­da tour at your school or in your com­mu­ni­ty, please con­tact BATT at 354-8354 or 290-2197 or on Face­book.com, search: Bois Acad­e­my of Trinidad & To­ba­go.