Yvonne Webb

While the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of tal­ent and the sheer artistry of the in­di­vid­u­als and groups con­tin­ue to soar in the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Arts Fes­ti­val (San­Fest), the event con­tin­ues to be plagued by a lack of au­di­ence and school par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Last week Mon­day, stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Skits cat­e­go­ry, played strict­ly for the judges as all the seats in the en­tire au­di­to­ri­um re­mained emp­ty. Stu­dents from one of the par­tic­i­pat­ing schools, Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary, said the emp­ty seats did have an im­pact on their por­tray­al.

A teacher from this school al­so spoke about the lack of en­cour­age­ment for stu­dents who want to study the­atre arts as a sub­ject. Ju­nior Fes­ti­val ad­vi­sor Walid Baksh at­trib­uted these draw­backs to a dis­in­ter­est by many of the school prin­ci­pals.

"A lot of the prin­ci­pals are new and do not have a gen­uine in­ter­est in the arts," he said, at the end of the pre­lim­i­nary round of the fes­ti­val in the Vic­to­ria Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict ear­li­er this week. "Prin­ci­pals are not will­ing to send their chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate, es­pe­cial­ly those schools which have a greater in­ter­est in the aca­d­e­mics. This has been a prob­lem over the years."

Say­ing this kind of think­ing was skewed, Baksh point­ed out that quite a num­ber of stu­dents who re­ceived schol­ar­ships based on the Cape ex­am­i­na­tion, "in­clud­ing about four or so from Na­pari­ma Col­lege were par­tic­i­pat­ing in San­Fest over the past two years.

"So there is no rea­son for keep­ing chil­dren from par­tic­i­pat­ing. The arts play a great role in the all-round de­vel­op­ment of a child," the for­mer school prin­ci­pal ad­vanced.

He said es­pe­cial­ly now, where there is a thrust to pro­mote the vi­su­al and per­form­ing arts as com­po­nents of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion, it is im­por­tant for pri­ma­ry school stu­dents to be ex­posed to these kinds of com­pe­ti­tions.

Ad­mit­ting the syl­labus was late this year and some schools did not have enough time to pre­pare, Baksh said al­lowances were made for late en­tries.

"But on­ly 22 schools in the dis­trict re­spond­ed, which was an im­prove­ment from the 18 we had last year," he ex­plained. Baksh, a for­mer ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the 42-year-old fes­ti­val, said the mu­sic cat­e­go­ry, in par­tic­u­lar, was a dis­ap­point­ment in the dis­trict.

"There has been a fan­tas­tic turnout this year in dra­ma, sto­ry­telling, but the skits were al­so dis­ap­point­ing." Baksh said for years the com­mit­tee has been rec­om­mend­ing work­shops in the dif­fer­ent ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­tricts, to be at­tend­ed not on­ly by the teach­ers of the var­i­ous dis­ci­plines, but oth­er teach­ers and prin­ci­pals to see what is in­volved and gen­er­ate in­ter­est at the same time.

"We (com­mit­tee) have been ad­vo­cat­ing for years, since I was fes­ti­val di­rec­tor for the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to get their cur­ricu­lum of­fi­cers in­volved in push­ing the fes­ti­val in the dif­fer­ent dis­tricts."

He threw out a chal­lenge for the min­is­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Gopeesingh and Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, "to at­tend one or two of the per­for­mances and see the lev­el of in­volve­ment and the stan­dard of the per­for­mance so they could en­cour­age more schools to get on board."

The fes­ti­val, which is en­dorsed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, had its gen­e­sis in 1970 by the San Fer­nan­do Arts Coun­cil, to en­cour­age the nur­tur­ing and es­tab­lish­ment of the per­form­ing, lit­er­ary and vi­su­al arts in schools. Over the years, the fes­ti­val, which is open to tal­ent­ed stu­dents, up to the age of 19, has be­come na­tion­al in scope, tak­ing place through­out the ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­tricts.

In 2008, over 200 schools and 12,000 stu­dents from across Trinidad and To­ba­go par­tic­i­pat­ed in the fes­ti­val which has served as a pri­ma­ry stage for some of the ma­jor lo­cal artistes, in­clud­ing Machel Mon­tano, and pan­nists At­i­ba Williams and Liam Teague.

SCHED­ULE

Pre­lims:

Sep­tem­ber 25 – Oc­to­ber 17

Fi­nals: Oc­to­ber 22 – No­vem­ber 15, the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre

Com­mand Per­for­mance: No­vem­ber 20 and 21,

Na­pari­ma Bowl

High­light Per­for­mance: No­vem­ber 26, Queen's Hall

Se­nior San Fest:

Oc­to­ber 15 – No­vem­ber 25, Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre