Al Creighton

In Guyana the best celebration of the performing arts in schools is seen in Mashramani where schools of all levels from all parts of the country exhibit untypical exuberance and keen rivalry. 

 Atlas  Give him strength, crouched on one knee in the dark with the earth on his back, balancing the seven seas, the oceans, five, kneeling in ruthless, empty, endless space for grace of whale, dolphin, sea

It is always interesting to study traditional festivals, their place in a society and how they are continually affected by time and geography. 

 Birdshooting Season   Birdshooting season the men make marriages with their guns My father’s house turns macho as from far the hunters gather   All night long contentless women stir their brews: hot coffee chocolata, cerassie wrap pone and tie-leaf for tomorrow’s sport.

The Link Show is celebrating its 30th production during its current run for the year 2014. 

As Guyana celebrates Republicanism with Mashramani and the 2014 Trinidad Carnival moves into high gear, the greatest calypsonian of all time, The Mighty Sparrow, is awarded Trinidad and Tobago’s highest honour, but in Guyana questions are raised over the calypso form itself.

Where Death was Kind Long had I thought Of death And the n they told me You were dead.

Particularly in the Caribbean the subject of drumming becomes very pertinent whenever African culture or the Month of Black History is celebrated. 

About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

Comedy is hard work.  It is also very deceptive.  The current success that it enjoys on the Guyanese stage, and the apparent lightheartedness of it all, the fun, the hilarity, the shooting nonsense to make people laugh, deceives everyone into believing that it is easy. 

Today is the 100th birthday of Guyanese poet and man of letters, Arthur James Seymour (January 12, 1914-December 25, 1989). 

Christmas is a religious festival.  Although it now falls under several other types, it is the most important calendar celebration for Christians. 

(David Dabydeen Johnson’s Dictionary (Leeds, UK: Peepal Tree Press, 221 p.) 

It is always very interesting to study the trends and characteristics of theatre in Guyana, as indeed it is to survey the rest of the Caribbean. 

To end this series of comments on Guyana’s Third National Drama Festival held in November, 2013, we consider the way the festival closed with four new plays produced by students of the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama. 

The third edition of the Guyana National Drama Festival ended its run of performances last Friday with plays entered by students of the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama. 

The Third National Drama Festival of Guyana, which is now in session, seems to be confirming the growing trend among Guyanese playwrights to use drama to tackle burning social issues.

The Commonwealth Foundation in London has announced the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, which is a competition open to all writers across the Commonwealth.

The recent performance of the Dance Season 2013 of the National Dance Company titled Suites –Revista choreographed and directed by Vivienne Daniel, in some ways underlines a number of significant factors in the place and state of the company at the present time.

Mark this for a mercy; that here birds, even here,   sustain the wide and impossible highways of warm current, divide the sky; mark this- they all day have amazed the air, that it falls apart from  their heavy wings in thin wedges of sound; though the dull black earth is very still, sweating a special sourness they make high over the  hard thorn-trees their own magnificent turning, they chain all together with very slow journeys to and fro the limits of the dead place; smelling anything old and no longer quick.