Sean Nero

Fun­so Aiye­ji­na, Dean of Hu­man­i­ties and Ed­u­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, has de­scribed the De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts as "the gem" in UWI's "crown." Com­ment­ing on the out­fit's tri­umph at Mon­day's two-in-one (2007-2008) Cacique Awards cer­e­mo­ny held at Queen's Hall in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain, where thes­pi­ans from UWI's Fes­ti­val Chorale and Stu­dent Pro­duc­tion teams copped eleven out of 22 com­pe­ti­tion prizes, he said: "They have made us proud. This is a very proud mo­ment for us. What we have been do­ing qui­et­ly has been recog­nised on a na­tion­al scale and, hope­ful­ly, re­gion­al­ly."

The Fes­ti­val Chorale copped six awards for Oliv­er (2007), start­ing with the Most Out­stand­ing Sup­port­ing Ac­tor, 11-year-old Dim­itri Pol­lard and in­clud­ing Out­stand­ing Dra­mat­ic Pro­duc­tion and Out­stand­ing Pro­duc­tion awards. Three awards went to The Sound of Mu­sic (2008), in­clud­ing Most Out­stand­ing Ac­tress, Han­nah Howard, while Bit­ter Cas­sa­va (2008), from Stu­dent Pro­duc­tion cap­tured ac­co­lades for Most Out­stand­ing Sup­port­ing Ac­tress, Abi­gail Hen­ry and Most Out­stand­ing Sup­port­ing Ac­tor, Muhammed Muwak­il. Louis Mc Williams di­rect­ed all three pro­duc­tions. "We have some of the best tal­ents on this cam­pus, peo­ple who, in their own pro­fes­sion­al life, have been pro­mot­ing the arts," said Aiye­ji­na.

"They are the ones who shine and show the world what we are do­ing with lim­it­ed re­sources. "We could do with more re­sources. Peo­ple think the arts don't need re­sources, but we do. "We need bet­ter spaces to work. The con­di­tions un­der which we op­er­ate are not the best. They are cramped. The prin­ci­pal (Prof Clement Sankat) recog­nis­es that and is very sup­port­ive. We are get­ting sup­port for a Per­form­ing Cen­tre on cam­pus." Asked if the De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts was the "bas­tard child" on cam­pus when com­pared to ar­eas like en­gi­neer­ing, law and so­cial sci­ences, Aiye­ji­na said "bal­ance is es­sen­tial, whether you are in en­gi­neer­ing or the hu­man­i­ties." "A so­ci­ety that does not pay at­ten­tion to cul­ture can be tech­no­log­i­cal­ly de­vel­oped, but emp­ty. Cul­ture is a way to un­der­stand who we are: our his­to­ry, lit­er­a­ture, paint­ing–our cul­ture. Every­thing we do is aimed at achiev­ing that kind of bal­ance in our so­ci­ety.

"Art is cru­cial­ly im­por­tant to so­ci­ety. It is just as im­por­tant as en­gi­neer­ing." Aiye­ji­na un­der­scored that all the avail­able tal­ents at UWI come to­geth­er for pro­duc­tions, be it stu­dents or fac­ul­ty. He said the pri­ma­ry premise of the De­part­ment for Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts is to pro­mote beau­ty and the moral sig­nif­i­cance of cul­ture. Fo­cus­ing on the Fes­ti­val Arts Chorale, un­der the mu­si­cal di­rec­tion of Jes­sel Mur­ray, Aiye­ji­na de­clared, "they can ri­val any in the world. "I don't want to sound po­lit­i­cal, but we have the abil­i­ty?to be world class–but need re­sources to do that. "The essence of a good life is the de­sire to im­prove what you have. "I will urge the Fes­ti­val Chorale and the Stu­dent Pro­duc­tion teams to keep go­ing for the next lev­el. There is a next lev­el. I want them to keep that ex­cel­lence alive and keep im­prov­ing."

Di­rec­tor speaks

UWI's Louis Mc Williams said, "Giv­en that we got five act­ing awards with young ac­tors, it says a bit for the teach­ing work that we do and our cre­ation of new tal­ent." Asked if he had ex­pect­ed this lat­est feat, Mc Williams replied, "I am al­ways cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic. "I know that we have done good work. The fact that we were nom­i­nat­ed in al­most all cat­e­gories says a lot. It's an in­di­ca­tion that peo­ple are see­ing what we are do­ing. "There's a sense of pride, but it's al­so an in­di­ca­tor that we have to con­tin­ue work­ing. We ac­cept suc­cess, but it all comes with work."

Mc Williams heaped praise on UWI Fes­ti­val Arts Chorale mu­sic di­rec­tor Jes­sel Mur­ray and the chore­o­g­ra­phers. Lament­ing that there's no award for mu­sic or chore­og­ra­phy, he de­clared that they were shar­ing in the 11 Caciques.

Cacique Awards

2007

And the win­ners are...

Most Out­stand­ing Set De­sign

Oliv­er! – Kwynn John­son

MOST OUT­STAND­ING COS­TUME DE­SIGN

Oliv­er! – Paulette Al­fred

MOST OUT­STAND­ING SUP­PORT­ING AC­TRESS

Kendra Sylvester – Oliv­er!

MOST OUT­STAND­ING SUP­PORT­ING AC­TOR

Dim­itri Pol­lard – Oliv­er!

MOST OUT­STAND­ING DRA­MAT­IC PRO­DUC­TION

Oliv­er!

Most Out­stand­ing Pro­duc­tion

Oliv­er!

2008

Most Out­stand­ing Set De­sign

Gillian Creese & Jen­nifer Mof­ford-Joab – The Sound of Mu­sic

MOST OUT­STAND­ING COS­TUME DE­SIGN

Paulette Al­fred – The Sound of Mu­sic

MOST OUT­STAND­ING SUP­PORT­ING AC­TRESS

Abi­gail Hen­ry – Bit­ter Cas­sa­va

MOST OUT­STAND­ING SUP­PORT­ING AC­TOR

Muham­mad Muwak­il – Bit­ter Cas­sa­va

MOST OUT­STAND­ING AC­TRESS

Han­nah Howard – The Sound of Mu­sic