2016 remains a significant and celebrated year for Shakespeare. It is commemorated worldwide as the 450th year since his death in 1616, and following major and clamorous celebratory events in London and Stratford in April, there are still similar programmes continuing during this year in England and elsewhere, including Guyana.
Coolie Mother
Jasmattie live in bruk –
Down hut big like Bata shoe box,
Beat clothes, weed yard, chop wood, feed fowl
For this body and that body and every blasted body,
Fetch water, all day fetch water like if the whole –
Whole slow-flowing Canje River God create
Just for she one own bucket.
On previous occasions we have offered surveys of different areas of Guyanese literature, from its origins in the oral literature of the native Amerindians in the pre-Columbian period, through the beginnings of the scribal literature—both Dutch and British—covering the colonial literature up to the founding of modern Guyanese national literature.
While there has been a kind of cooling off in the offer of plays on the popular commercial market, there has been a stepping up of activity on the Guyanese stage.
by Alim Hosein
The National Gallery of Art, in collaboration with the University of Guyana, the Guyana National Museum and the St Joseph Mercy Hospital will mount a special exhibition in celebration of Guyana’s 50th Anniversary of Independence.
2016 is already a very important year for anniversaries. For the nation of the Republic of Guyana it is most significant because it is the country’s 50th year since Independence and Golden Jubilee celebrations dominate its cultural agenda.
The National School of Theatre Arts and Drama (NSTAD) staged Performance 5: Ritual at the National Cultural Centre last week Sunday night, in which it showed off the work of its students.
This week in Guyana there is going to be the most intense activity in spoken word poetry, performance poetry, rap and hip-hop than there has ever been.
There is a private collective of workers known as the Main Street Art Group who held a ‘grand art exhibition’ at the Pegasus Hotel in mid-February titled ‘Jubilee Art’.
One of the leading plays in the 2015 National Drama Festival (NDF) was the new comedy Crack Jokes written and directed by a national Stand-Up Comedy Queen Odessa Primus.
The Republic of Guyana has the unique privilege among Caribbean Caricom nations of being able to celebrate two national days each year – Republic Day which is celebrated carnival style on February 23, and Independence Day celebrated in various other ways on May 26.
The release last week of the new film The Ole Higue by Ssignal Productions refocused the camera on Guyana’s attempts to build a film industry and on recent attention paid to the recognition and development of cultural industries.