Evening time/Panfest

 It's almost the eve of the Tallawah Mento Band and the Jamaican Folk Review's  historic trip to Ghana to compete in Panafest 2025. 

The taste they gave attendees at the Lauderdale Performing Arts Center was more like a bellyful.

A bellyful of music, laughs, dance,  kumina and happinesses!

Panafest (the Pan African Festival of Arts and Culture), is a biennial event established in Ghana in 1992 to unite Africans in the diaspora and on the continent and celebrate their resilience and African identity. 

Colin Smith, founder of Tallawah Mento Band and a cultural icon in his own right, explains the concept.

Kumina time

The talented cast

Panafest was the brainchild of the late, great Pan Africanist play right/author,  Efua Sutherland.

It has become a landmark festival in Ghana that gives Africans an opportunity to learn from each other wherever they are .

 This years theme is "Ensuring the African Kinship: Our Essence, Our Well-being, Our Prosperity."

Significantly, this is the first time a folkloric Jamaican entry will be involved in this auspicious,  two weeks event. 

 It took the Louise Bennett Coverly Heritage Council to make it happen.

If the taste we in Florida got is anything to go by, our entry will make a huge impact on the minds of Africans at home and abroad. It traces our progress through music and dance, from emancipation to victory.

 The performance also highlighted the contribution of world renowned artists such as Peter Tosh. Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and the foot stomping energy of kumina music and dance, in uplifting the souls of the once downtrodden people. 

We look forward to our particants  returning home with many medals for this creative, entertaining and educational performance.

Although the crowd of attendees was enthusiastic and participated in song and dance, in my book the numbers fell short of expectation for this important fund-raising event, especially in Florida where so many Jamaicans reside.

Ps. Follow the link below for an excellent review of their performance in Ghana.

https://wiredja.com/index.php/categories/newsberg/culture/africa-the-jamaican-folk-revue-and-tallawah-mento-band-performs-at-cape-coast-castle-ghana-the-heritage-preserved

Celebrating the Big 8

Cultural activist, renowned artist/musician, playwright, mentor and businessman Colin Smith, ( aka Barry) had no idea what was waiting for him at Island Space museum as he walked leisurely in Broward Mall, Florida, with his granddaughter, talented jazz singer/musician Alyssa (McDoom).

For although he suspected all week that something was being planned for his birthday, as his wife Anette, son Tariq, and daughters Kellie, Anika and Colleen kept whispering furtively, but shutting up as he approached, he couldn't imagine the scope. 

 A surprised Colin arrives with        granddaughter Alyssa.

.....and immediately caught the vibes 😊.

Some of the Smith siblings pay tribute to their famous brother Colin.

Son Tariq was the MC

It was a well planned affair, beautifully decorated venue, delicious food and a room full of happy friends and family who had come from all over the USA and Trinidad, to shower their friend and in many cases, mentor, with lots of love for his 80th birthday.

Daughter Colleen at entrance of venue.

Wife Anette surrounded by friends

Youngest of his siblings Hayden.

Some pieces of his art were on display.

Posing with my cousin Milton and wife Joan 

Alyssa serenades grandad Colin.

Other friends born in June, cut the cake with Colin.

Proud son Tariq toasts his mentor

                                                       Colin's band, Tallawah, entertains.

                 Dub poet Malachi left his own anniversary celebration to herald his friend.

It was an enjoyable, well planned, and executed affair for someone who has done so well for his family and kept his country's flag flying culturally in Florida.

We look forward to the big 81.

Ole time sinting indeed

Miss Lou would have been proud. For it was hilarious from start to finish, with splendid backdrops, lively music/dancing, colorful costumes and most importantly, professional acting.

The cast

I say Miss Lou would have been proud as not only were her lyrics, proverbs, and poems all integral parts of the production, but also it was produced by the organization in Florida established to not only keep the culture she held so dear relevant, but also to raise funds to sponsor scholarships to Broward College and the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica.

This outstanding pantomime “Ole Time Sinting Come Back Again’ was written by the late Easton Lee and Norma Darby (former director of Jamaica Folk Review) and first staged in Miramar Florida in 2011.

Consul General Oliver Mair salutes Norma Darby

This latest staging was at the 1000-seat Lauderhill Performing Arts Center in Florida and was a sold-out affair on the first night, Saturday, September 30, 2023. It closes on Sunday, October 1st.

Behind this production, is the dynamic cultural organization, the Louise Bennett-Coverley Heritage Council. It is chaired by the talented Jamaican, Colin Smith who also chairs the musical chorale, the Jamaica Folk Review, most of whose members were the actors in this production. 

Smith is also the founder and leader of Tallawah Mento Band which provided the music for the pantomime. He also directed this production.

Miss Lou was a child of the pantomime, having acted in the first one staged in Jamaica in 1941 and writing, producing, and acting in many others during her active life.

This latest production of 'Ol Time Sinting Come Back Again’ was entertaining from start to finish and elicited audience participation and laughter throughout.

I hope it will be taken on the road throughout the USA, for Jamaicans everywhere deserve to see this production.

I had been a regular pantomime attendee in Jamaica for many decades. Then they became boring to the point where I literally fell asleep in the last one I attended decades ago!

Then Covid came and brought it to an end locally.

Hopefully, this pantomime will be taken to Jamaica too so the younger generation will learn, and good pantomimes will once again become part of Kingston’s entertainment scene.

The late, great Louise Bennett aka Miss Lou

Miss Lou and the younger generation deserve no less. 

Snippets

Politicians giving themselves huge, unwarranted salary increases,  did not escape these two!😊