The curtains will close on 14th Caribbean Festival of the Arts (Carifesta XIV) this evening at the Savannah in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on the same stage that sees the closing of the famous carnival every year. This is the fourth time that this will happen in Trinidad and Tobago which has been the most willing Caribbean territory to play host to a festival that seems to be settling down following a sporadic and unsettled history.
That history goes back to various attempts to stage performances in the performing arts representing united regional effort. This, in a very vague way, reflects attempts at Caribbean unity at the political level, and both may be traced to the 1950s. It is significant that the University College of the West Indies was founded in 1948 when the thinking towards regional integration resulted in a permanent institution.
The first known event was recorded in 1952. “The staging of the first Caribbean Festival of Arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico… This event spurred some enthusiasm in the region for celebrating the excellence of Caribbean artistry.” (Efebo Wilkinson, “The Carifesta Story”, 2019). Other sources date this as 1951 and refer to it as the Caribbean Festival. They mention that “the Ivy Baxter Dance Group took four original pieces to the Caribbean Festival in Puerto Rico in 1951” (The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre).
