KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Four women are be­hind the pro­duc­tion of STRIPPED: A Ted­dyson John Ex­pe­ri­ence card­ed to take place at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts on Jan­u­ary 31.

They are Abeo Jack­son, cre­ative di­rec­tor; Tonya Evans, project man­ag­er; Celia Wells, light­ing de­sign­er; and Te­nille Clarke, John’s pub­li­cist and the show’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions di­rec­tor.

“We are al­ways in search of new cre­ative chal­lenges,” ex­plained Jack­son.

“Al­ways search­ing for ways to break the ceil­ing and shat­ter the ta­bles that have long both overt­ly and mi­cro ag­gres­sive­ly ex­clud­ed ‘dif­fer­ence’, whether along the lines of gen­der, colour, class, eth­nic­i­ty etc.

“This was a case of us as women say­ing the names of oth­er women with whom we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly worked or were aware of their cal­i­bre of ex­per­tise when we were brought to the ta­ble.

“It is an ex­cit­ing time for women cre­atives carv­ing new spaces with and for each oth­er with­in the cre­ative sec­tor. A time to make art, a time to do good work with high pro­duc­tion val­ue and a time to be com­pen­sat­ed ap­pro­pri­ate­ly in pro­por­tion to our years of ex­pe­ri­ence, train­ing/qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­ist­ing body of work.”

STRIPPED: A Ted­dyson John Ex­pe­ri­ence made its de­but in Trinidad Car­ni­val at NA­PA in 2023.

The event ex­pe­ri­ence aims to cel­e­brate world-class tal­ent with a cast of amaz­ing vo­cal­ists and per­form­ers from the Caribbean so­ca in­dus­try.

Clarke said as a Caribbean cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, John finds it im­por­tant to show­case the raw tal­ent of so­ca artistes which is of­ten over­looked and un­der­stat­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing this in­tense Car­ni­val sea­son of rev­el­ry.

“Our au­di­ence of sup­port­ers and mu­sic lovers are ea­ger to be en­ter­tained by some of their favourite so­ca artistes in an acoustic set­ting where the mu­si­cal arrange­ments are ‘stripped’ and reimag­ined,” she added.

“STRIPPED’s mis­sion is to bring to­geth­er the very best that the Caribbean has to of­fer while keep­ing fo­cus on cel­e­brat­ing the in­cred­i­ble bod­ies of work from so­ca’s bright­est tal­ent year-round–both on stage and be­hind the scenes.

Clarke, who has worked in the cul­ture and en­ter­tain­ment cir­cuit for over a decade, be­lieves John is the em­bod­i­ment of Caribbean cre­ative ex­cel­lence.

“When he first shared the vi­sion of STRIPPED with me, I knew that it had the po­ten­tial to be a mas­sive suc­cess to re­al­ly change the en­ter­tain­ment land­scape, but it al­so need­ed the right team of pro­fes­sion­als on the back end. I’m al­ways hy­per-fo­cused on qual­i­ty ex­pe­ri­ences,” she said.

“Ted­dyson’s body of work as a singer, song­writer and mul­ti-in­stru­men­tal­ist cel­e­brates the fe­male iden­ti­ty in a re­spect­ful, ten­der way. This show must re­flect those ideals in his mu­sic. As a pub­li­cist and sto­ry­teller, my role is clear: to cre­ate a pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ty where women can ex­press them­selves freely and men recog­nise the sa­cred­ness of that free­dom of ex­pres­sion.”

The event which was cre­at­ed for women con­tin­ues to cel­e­brate fe­male great­ness.

“I val­ue be­ing able to imag­ine a show where women can feel seen, val­ued and cel­e­brat­ed in mul­ti­ple ways,” said Jack­son.

“Whether it is on stage through the per­for­mances, in the ways we frame and rep­re­sent lyrics, move­ment and mu­sic that un­der­score the mag­i­cal, pow­er­ful en­er­gy that women have al­ways wield­ed in­side the Car­ni­val.

“The event is be­ing staged con­cert hall/the­atre style at NA­PA, lo­gis­ti­cal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly al­lows for a safer, more con­tained event with se­cured park­ing, ush­ers, in­door well-lit bath­rooms and mir­rors, con­ces­sions, ful­ly air-con­di­tioned com­fort, a beau­ti­ful red car­pet. All those love­ly com­fort­able things many of us tend to en­joy as the ic­ing on the cake if we are step­ping out and the dress code re­quires ‘Caribbean el­e­gance’.”

Clarke said women will be cel­e­brat­ed for their vi­va­cious, bril­liant, out­stand­ing per­son­al­i­ties.

“At this show, we want women to come out in their best dressed and feel good about them­selves,” she said.

“We want to ho­n­our their pres­ence. We want to thank them for bring­ing joy in all of their var­i­ous roles dai­ly. And this year, that spir­it of di­vine fem­i­nine en­er­gy is al­so re­flect­ed in the per­for­mance line­up with three Caribbean pow­er­house fe­male so­ca artistes: De­stra Gar­cia, Al­i­son Hinds and Na­dia Bat­son. They are all bril­liant in their own right and light.”

As for her ad­vice for women for Car­ni­val 2024, Clarke said, “Pace your­self and lis­ten to your body. We of­ten work our fin­gers to the bone and push our­selves to the lim­it. Some­times that means that we’re asked to be su­per­heroes in every cir­cum­stance and every­one else be­sides our­selves. Health is wealth: to take care of oth­ers and to nur­ture, you have to take care of your mind, body and spir­it. Al­so, when you achieve some­thing that makes you feel good and en­rich­es the lives of oth­ers, cel­e­brate your win.”