Ken Ali

?Q: What tech­ni­cal analy­sis led to your claims of de­sign and ar­chi­tec­tur­al flaws at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of Per­form­ing Arts?

A: Since the open­ing of NA­PA, we have re­ceived re­ports of faulty specs from light­ing and sound tech­ni­cians, pro­duc­ers, dancers, ac­tors and mu­si­cians. Af­ter every show we re­ceive new com­plaints that are ver­i­fied by dozens of peo­ple. We have re­ceived re­ports from vis­it­ing in­ter­na­tion­al tech­ni­cians and from peo­ple in­side the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, from high and low. We are still re­ceiv­ing in­fo, some too scan­dalous to re­peat! Then, of course, I toured the fa­cil­i­ty with dra­ma and dance stake­hold­ers, and saw things for my­self, but the analy­sis of the flaws of NA­PA did not be­gin with the fin­ished build­ing.

For five years, stake­hold­ers have fought to get the Gov­ern­ment to con­sult and cre­ate a build­ing of in­tegri­ty. We got our hands on ar­chi­tec­tur­al plans through the back door, de­spite all ef­forts to block us. It was flawed from the be­gin­ning. It was not built for our needs. It was bought cat-in-bag from the Chi­nese. Se­nior artists and ar­chi­tects pored over the plans and not­ed all the mas­sive con­cep­tu­al prob­lems. We have been giv­ing the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Calder Hart and Ude­cott, and the Ho­n­ourable PM cor­rec­tive specs for years–to no avail.

What are the specifics of the short­falls you have out­lined?

The first prob­lem is con­cep­tu­al. The Gov­ern­ment in­sist­ed in mak­ing all the acad­e­mies per­form­ing arts-based. They do not re­alise that Trin­bag­on­ian and Caribbean arts are mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary. We need to build holis­tic schools for the arts. Strike one! Then, the Gov­ern­ment nev­er un­der­stood what an acad­e­my was. An acad­e­my is the in­sti­tu­tion charged with pass­ing on your tra­di­tions.

Which begs the ques­tion: What are our tra­di­tions?

Most of our tra­di­tions–pan, mas, Ram­leela, hosay, To­ba­go Her­itage–are all out­door-based, and re­quire space and scale. NA­PA has no pur­pose-built out­door stages or spaces, and makes no pro­vi­sion for any of our tra­di­tions.

The at­tempt to "lo­calise" the cur­ricu­lum for NA­PA was thrown out when Pat Bish­op (the prin­ci­pal up to 2008) was fired. The mis­takes be­gan to mul­ti­ply af­ter that.

How were the re­me­di­al costs tab­u­lat­ed?

We went through the needs and did a room-by-room cost­ing of what it would take to con­vert the cho­sen rooms in­to what they were sup­posed to be. For in­stance, there are two rooms which have dis­hon­est­ly been called black box the­atres; they are not. They are just big rooms that will have to be con­vert­ed from scratch. Raised seat­ing will have to be built; walls may have to be knocked out to cre­ate back­stages, dress­ing rooms, and green rooms; a stage will have to be built. Light­ing rigs will have to be built for the ceil­ing, sound equip­ment ac­quired, etc. None of the rooms are pur­pose-built; they are just big rooms. Every­thing still needs to be done! That costs mon­ey...

How do you re­spond to the de­nial by Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald?

The min­is­ter has al­ready been caught out on the ques­tion of con­sul­ta­tion; many groups have de­nied her claim. We have re­leased to the press, let­ters signed by these and oth­er groups plead­ing for con­sul­ta­tion. I don't know if the min­is­ter was mis­in­formed. It is easy to get car­ried away by some­thing big and shiny, es­pe­cial­ly if you do not un­der­stand how cul­ture works.

Was the artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty con­sult­ed pri­or to con­struc­tion of the acad­e­my?

Nev­er. We have tried for five years. Even up to the present we have not been al­lowed to con­tribute. This scan­dal is ac­tu­al­ly the first time that we have been al­lowed to be heard, be­cause we al­so were muz­zled in the press. In 2005, there was a show­ing of the al­ready com­plet­ed dig­i­tal mod­els of the build­ings. When it was fin­ished, artists' hands shot up. They asked tech­ni­cal and philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions about the build­ings, none of which could be an­swered sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly. The min­is­ter, Calder Hart and the ar­chi­tect quick­ly packed up, and that was the last we ever saw of them. Up to this day, the com­mu­ni­ty has not seen plans for San Fer­nan­do, John D and the Sa­van­nah Cen­tre. A 40-minute meet­ing with stake­hold­ers could have changed this en­tire tragedy. Ar­ro­gance, in­stead, has now cost us tens of mil­lions.

What are the lessons from this les­son for the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty?

Con­sul­ta­tion needs to be the path­way for the con­struc­tion of all civic projects, no mat­ter the size. Al­so, de­vel­op­ment must be peo­ple-based. While NA­PA was be­ing con­struct­ed, we told the Gov­ern­ment they need­ed to record the lega­cy of our dy­ing gold­en age gen­er­a­tion. The coun­try's gold­en age lay be­tween 1930 and 1950; those el­ders are now 75 and over. These record­ed lega­cies should have been the cur­ricu­lum of NA­PA and pro­vid­ed the DNA of the build­ing, with a res­i­dent hall of fame and more. In­stead, 17,000 el­ders have died in the last decade with­out be­ing doc­u­ment­ed. Some tra­di­tions have dis­ap­peared al­to­geth­er. It has been self-in­flict­ed cul­tur­al geno­cide.

Is your group tak­ing sim­i­lar in­ter­est in the cur­rent con­struc­tion of the south­ern per­form­ing arts cen­tre?

The rea­son we need to open up NA­PA for im­me­di­ate analy­sis by ex­perts and stake­hold­ers is be­cause we need to see what it can and can­not do. On­ly then can we ra­tio­nalise the specs of the oth­er build­ings.

What are the oth­er pub­lic mat­ters your or­gan­i­sa­tion is pur­su­ing?

We took over na­tion­al cul­tur­al ac­tivism around 1997.�Two gen­er­a­tions of artists were dy­ing with­out any artist de­mand grant­ed since in­de­pen­dence. We hired lawyers, ac­coun­tants and start­ed talk­ing the lan­guage of ?econ­o­mists, in re­spect to cul­ture in an ef­fort to get politi­cians to lis­ten. We went all over the coun­try com­pil­ing artist de­mands from every sec­tor–mas, chut­ney, film, etc. We thought we'd get a long list. All we got was a list of six in­sti­tu­tion­al com­plex­es and 11 pieces of leg­is­la­tion. That was all artists had ever want­ed. We made these de­mands the grounds for all our ag­i­ta­tion over the last decade. Our lob­by­ing got the agen­da of com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres and NA­PA in­to Gov­ern­ment's plans. We or­gan­ised the march­es for 50 per cent lo­cal con­tent quo­tas, which led to the lib­er­al­is­ing of the air­waves with now 36 ra­dio sta­tions and 15 TV sta­tions. We are try­ing now to get the na­tion­al cul­tur­al pol­i­cy to be re­leased for pub­lic com­ment, so it can be adopt­ed.

Were you in­volved in dis­cus­sions for that na­tion­al cul­tur­al pol­i­cy, and if so, where did that lead to?

I was one of a team of three that worked on cre­at­ing the draft na­tion­al cul­tur­al pol­i­cy as­sem­bled by the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture. We worked for al­most a year, two to three times a week, in the min­istry in whole and half-day ses­sions, us­ing hun­dreds of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al doc­u­ments, to ar­rive at the draft. It was tak­en from us one week be­fore it was due. That was the last we ever saw or heard of it. That was al­most three years ago! The present min­is­ter came in­to of­fice, and has since re­fused to pay for the doc­u­ment, say­ing that we must con­sid­er it an act of char­i­ty. Bear in mind that peo­ple were be­ing paid hun­dreds of thou­sands for pol­i­cy doc­u­ments from oth­er min­istries.

What makes cul­ture a char­i­ty?�What are your re­la­tions with Min­is­ter Mc­Don­ald?

Since com­ing in­to of­fice, the min­is­ter, for some rea­son, has re­fused to speak to me and our or­gan­i­sa­tion. The on­ly time I have ever spo­ken to her was when she called and abused me say­ing that: "Yuh have nut­ten to get from we! You have no mon­ey to get from we!" She al­so said she does not have to meet with ACTT, be­cause we are a union. She, of course, is wrong. ACTT is a trade as­so­ci­a­tion. We are be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries, un­der a di­rec­tive from the Min­istry of Trade. The Cham­bers of Com­merce are al­so mem­bers. We are recog­nised and have worked with UN­ESCO, WIPO, the Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion, Toron­to Arts Coun­cil, and the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, where we made a pre­sen­ta­tion on be­half of the coun­try. We as­sist­ed in the ne­go­ti­a­tions of the Eu­ro­pean Part­ner­ship Agree­ment on be­half of the na­tion­al sec­tor. In fact, the on­ly agency in the world that does not recog­nise us is our own Min­istry of Cul­ture!

Is the gov­ern­ment treat­ing the arts as an in­te­gral as­pect of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment?

I am sure they might think so, but they do not un­der­stand it. We fought to get film and en­ter­tain­ment ac­cept­ed as two of the sev­en sec­tors that should be de­vel­oped as al­ter­na­tives to oil and gas. But the Gov­ern­ment has not re­sourced these sec­tors and their agen­cies prop­er­ly. They al­so are not lis­ten­ing to sense. Stake­hold­ers know what needs to be done. The gov­ern­ment still has a hus­tle and de­pen­den­cy syn­drome built in­to how they con­sid­er the arts. They need to lis­ten, fa­cil­i­tate, and get out of the way. Our cul­ture can heal col­laps­ing com­mu­ni­ties, solve the crime prob­lem, dou­ble our for­eign ex­change earn­ings, and pro­vide full-time, en­joy­able em­ploy­ment for tens of thou­sands. But they need to get a clue.