WORDalive 5 - more petry in St Lucia

poetry with music WORDALIVE5

is on…! Sat.March.27.2010 SAMAANS PARK - 8.00 PM

Dynamic performances, new and emerging poets!

competing and non-competing CASH AWARDS to top performers

Pre-Register NOW!

send name and contact info:

info@landmarkcaribbean.com

Recent samples also useful



sponsored by 1st National Bank …here for you in association with

landmarkevents and The St. Lucia Art Festivals Company

Headphunk - poetry event in Castries

Headphunk is on again at the same venue, Charms Cafe. - Castries

Thursday January 28th from 7pm

Our feature writer for the night will be Kendel Hippolyte.

Come listen to established poets, alongside new upcoming writers, and original music.

headphunk: evoking creative consciousness

Labowi promotions E-Forum

Labowi promotions E-Forum: Laborians Home & Abroad: Partners in Development

On behalf of the Nobel Laureate Week Committee chaired by Her Excellency Dame Pearlette Louisy, and in collaboration with the Laborie Development Foundation, we are pleased to invite you to participate in the e-Forum that will take place between the morning of Thursday 21 January and the evening of Sunday 24 January. The theme of this e-Forum is "LABORIANS HOME AND ABROAD: PARTNERS IN DEVELOPMENT". Its purpose is to bring together Laborians at home and abroad, especially young people, to discuss their respective roles in community development, and how they can work more closely together. We expect that this e-Forum will help to improve communication between Laborians at home and abroad, to increase the involvement of Laborians living overseas in community development activities in Laborie, and to identify possible joint activities.

The e-Forum will be hosted by http://www.facebook.com/l/449df;www.ilovelaborie.com, the community's new Website. To participate, log-on to the e-forum section of the site, where you will find very simple instructions on how to contribute to the discussion, with four sets of questions:
what can Laborie do for Laborians overseas?
what can Laborians living overseas do for Laborie?
how can Laborians and Friends of Laborie remain in touch and informed about the development of the community?
what are the priority projects that Laborians at home and abroad can work on together, with other partners, for the benefit of the community?

WOle OSyinka conference in ST Lucia - my introduction

Hey people,

here is the text of my introduction.
Wole Soyinka text will be printed soon.

I will post more picture later.




Introduction of Professor Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate Week – Derek Walcott lecture
18th January 2010
By Armelle Chatelier

Her Excellency Dame Pearlette Louisy, Governor General of St Lucia
Prime Minister the Hon. Stephenson King
Hon. Ministers: …
Members of the Diplomatic corps
Lady Lewis & family
Sir Dunstan & Lady St Omer

Derek & Sigrid Nama

Wole

You will have noticed that I used only the first names of the two writers
present and recipients of the Nobel Prize,
well because Wole said:
« This prize has such prestige and impact on people’s imagination at all
levels that you become the property of the world».

Well, Yes you are.

In St Lucia we say, “Derek said, or Derek is doing this”, and nobody asks
which Derek. In West Africa when we talk about Wole… everybody knows just who is meant.

It surely takes a lot of work to “make a name” but the ultimate achievement is to become a first name, familiar and close to the
people.

I have 5 minutes to introduce Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka to you. How can I avoid the two difficulties of the exercise – platitude and panegyric?

To do so, I will invoke the spirits of my mother family, Griots from Senegal (a caste of historians, storytellers and musicians) who walk alongside the
great men of West Africa, accompany them, give them the words, keep and transmit their memories.

It is friendship that brings Wole over the seas, to meet his brother in
literature, in theatre, in Nobel recognition: Derek Walcott.
If you meet the man, you meet the country.
Who is Derek Walcott without St Lucia?
and What is St Lucia without Africa ?

Despite the enforced amnesia – Africa is everywhere, in traces, as
reference, in the faces of the people in St Lucia. There is a persistent
memory that fights against the denial: the food, the dances, the music, the
language – they all include, woven in the social fabric, the motherland. The
last Kele (Shango) priest of St Lucia was, till the 90’s, using a West African
language in his ceremony… when he invoked Yorùbá spirits, right here in Fond Assau.

I am invoking the Yorùbá deity Ogun - whom Wole Soyinka regards as kindred and protector spirit - to guide us as we appreciate the special man we have with us tonight.

It is the power of roots and Culture that motivates him to be “raconter”, to
tell and to show in 8 poetry collections, 5 memoirs, 2 novels, 21 plays and
5 collections of essays, the essence of Human Nature.

As Wole says “Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.” And the words on paper put him at great personal risk and eventually led him to jail.

It is the injustice that drives him to identify with the people of Biafra, with the people of Nigeria, with all the oppressed people in the world against military governments here and there, denouncing “the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it".

As a writer, he helps us to continue to dream of an Africa of peace, creativity, solidarity, mediation. As a man of action, he gives us courage everywhere.

Wole said “And wherever humanity is involved, that's my constituency”.

Indeed St Lucia with its Ameridian people, African people, European people, Indian people, is a microcosm of the world, a cross section of humanity.

Well to finish - I caution Professor Soyinka:
Be careful ! Dame Pearlette once joked that there must be something in St Lucia’s water for us to have two Nobel Prize winners so stick to the wine you appreciate so much, because after this trip you may receive an other Nobel Prize.

Folk research center has a new site - under construction

Hey,

I am working on FRC website
hope you will like it
more info online, text, vidoe, audio and photos...

it must be a super website with unique content.

I will inform you of the launching soon.

UWI pays tirubte to Derek Walcott -

St Lucia is renowned as the birthplace of 1992 Nobel Laureate for Literature Derek Walcott. There’s even a bust of the literary giant in the Derek Walcott Square. The island, fondly dubbed the “Helen of the West Indies”, was also the home of the late University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturer Dr Patricia Ismond.
Ismond also had the distinction of examining Walcott’s work in “Abandoning Dead Metaphors: The Caribbean Phase of Derek Walcott’s Poetry”...

read more

Wole Soyinka is coming to St Lucia !!!

WOLE is coming to ST Lucia !!
he is arriving saturday and leaving the tuesday...

His lecture is the Monday 18th January at 7.30 at NIS conference center.

The African-Caribbean Association of St lucia is organising sunday a boat ride for him to the Pitons..; with a short visit in Soufrière Area.

and he will assist to the launching of the Nobel Laureate week sunday night.

I will have the honour to introduce him before his lecture and this is too much for my little shoulders of franco-senegalase women adopted in St Lucia :-)

anyway we will have a great time with the meeting Derek Walcott - Wole Soyinka over the ocean and joining for theater and poetry.

well..; I will give you some news and post some pictures of our great trip and intellectual journey to the country of Ogun - nigerian god protecting WOle.


I just watch news on BBC and see Wole Soyinka not happy about politicians of his country, some news about NIgeria...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/12/nigeria-president-quash-death-rumours

nobel Laureate week in St Lucia - programme

Nobel Laureate Week 2010
January 17th to 23rd

Theme: Celebrating Excellence At Home and Abroad


Sunday, January 17th

OPENING OF NOBEL LAUREATE WEEK

Staging of “The Harrowing of Benjy” by the Soufriere Action Theatre and extracts from the “Joker of Seville” by the School Performing Arts Company – National Cultural Centre, 6:30.p.m.

Monday, January 18th
Youth Video Conference “Homecoming”– UWI Open Campus, Morne Fortune 10:00 a.m.

Derek Walcott Lecture – Delivered by Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate (Literature 1986), National Insurance Centre Conference Room, 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, January 19th
The National Awards of Excellence hosted by the Ministry of Education and Culture – National Cultural Centre, 10:00 am.

Book Launch – “Love Me” by Gemma Weekes – UWI Open Campus, Morne Fortune, 6:00 p.m.

Re-Launch of Television Series “New Perspectives”, Panel discussion – HTS Channels 4, 34, 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday, January 20th
Schools’ Choral Music Festival – National Cultural Centre, 10.00 a.m.

Thursday, January 21st
Opening of The National Portrait Gallery – St. Lucia National Archives, 10:00 a.m.

Web-Based Seminar - Laborie Community Internet Forum hosted by www.ilovelaborie.com, continuing to 24th January)

Sir Arthur Lewis Memorial Lecture - Presented by Mr Peter Adrien - National Insurance Centre Conference Room, 7:30 p.m.


Friday, January 22nd
Wreath-laying Ceremony – Tomb of Sir Arthur Lewis, Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, 10:00 a.m.

Arts and Crafts Showcase hosted by Options Designs – Derek Walcott Square, 10:00 a.m.

St Mary’s College Tribute to the Laureates – National Cultural Centre, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, January 23rd NOBEL LAUREATE DAY

Radio St Lucia’s “80 in 80” Final Programme – Live broadcast from the Derek Walcott Square, from 9:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

St Lucia Chamber of Commerce Business Awards – hosted by the St Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Sandals Grande St Lucian Spa and Beach Resort, 7:30 p.m.

“Breakout” – Dance production performed by the Silver Shadow Performing Arts Academy, National Cultural Centre, 8:00 p.m.

Friday, January 29th
and “Pantomime” by Derek Walcott – A Dramaworks

Saturday, January 30th
(Barbados) Production – National Cultural Centre, 8:00 p.m.

more on face book http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/group.php?gid=181208835981

Launching of Gemma weekes book in St lucia

Programmed into Nobel Laureate Week celebrations,
January 19th launcing of St Lucian book, the novel Love Me! of Gemma Weekes young st lucian author.

the event will include a reading of some excerpts from the critically-acclaimed work, some music, and a Q&A session.
It is free entry and there will be books on sale!

UWI Open Campus
on the Morne Fortune
at 6:00
the 19th January.

happy new year to all !!

There is a lot of things happening in St Lucia for this new year and I was busy with end of year activities (including parties !)

well, here are the good news....