Category: NAPA

Bubbles in the pot keep rising

July 1, 2010 by Edmund Gall

Like many of you, I'm quite distracted lately by the FIFA World Cup 2010 tournament in South Africa, so I haven't been as prolific in my writing as before. Here are some brief thoughts on issues that crossed the online forums I've browsed over the past two weeks.

Local Government Elections

• Official claims are that it was scheduled for July to halt the damage to our democracy that the annual postponement over the past 4 years has caused.
• Some analysts have welcomed the snap Local Government Elections, while one person has warned it's too soon.
• The average citizen can't help but admire how convenient it is to host this while the People's Partnership is basking in the glow of its General Election success before the bad news of their first National Budget is delivered; healing democracy may be a fringe benefit.

SAPA and potential disconnect? {Read more}

• The Hon. Multiculturalism Minister Winston Peters complained that SAPA is too small for the money spent: 'If you have a show in Trinidad and Tobago and you have 810 people, then you have a buss show.'
• However, the artists themselves, through ACTT, complained that the NAPA in Port of Spain didn't have enough smaller auditoriums with maximum seating capacity for 400 patrons.

NAPA warranty does not cover design flaws, Madame Minister

April 16, 2010 by Edmund Gall

How to focus ACTT's struggles

March 29, 2010 by Edmund Gall

The following is a discussion post I created on the ACTT's NAPA facebook group.  Check there for additional comments from fellow group members.

Dear ACTT and fellow facebook fans,

I am not an artist. I'm a consumer who appreciates the arts and I support your struggle. However, there are some things I find distracting as an outsider and would like to use this discussion to generate constructive criticism for you.

I read the original PDF report where you laid out the problems with NAPA and have followed whatever was published on the three dailies' websites and discussions on C TV's First Up.

Here's what I like so far:

• The report laid out the NAPA Centre's faults and ACTT's concerns
• The report mentioned an example of how construction with consultation would work (Shaw Park)
• Your interview on First Up was very clear, to the point, and passionate without being overly emotional
• You're keeping the public informed through traditional and new media (Internet).

Here are some of the things I don't like: {Read more}

• Your passion is important, but it needs to be controlled in your writing; uppercase text is used to emphasise, but overuse of uppercase text is considered shouting or ranting online.
• Your original report had a lot of typographical and formatting errors. Maybe you were trying to hasten its publishing, but at times it looked very sloppy.

The problems with NAPA

March 15, 2010 by Edmund Gall

A report entitled The Tragedy & The Hidden History of NAPA is currently being circulated online.  Written by Rubadiri Victor, President of the Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT), it presents his (and/or his organisation's) views on the history of the development of T&T's National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA), concerns about its flagship building (the NAPA Centre) at Queens Park South in Port of Spain, and what it means for T&T's culture.

I'm still digesting the report but after a first reading, some things are disconcerting.

Firstly, the community of T&T's artists are very much hurt by the government's lack of consultation with them in designing the facility and continued lack of publication of the national cultural policy.  These are minor pillars, though, on the foundation of continuous and repeated sidelining and disrespectful treatment of the community by multiple governments over the course of nearly five decades.  For a country that always described itself internationally based on its unique culture, it smacks of duplicity.

Secondly, if the examples of the NAPA Centre's design errors highlighted in the document are true, then the Prime Minister should immediately retract all his statements that the facility is world class and replace them by the more fuller description of world class mess.  Some of the issues are too basic to be believed, e.g. having instructions for hundreds of switches that control electrical elements written in Chinese and not English.

Thirdly, Mr Victor was concerned about the lack of support in getting the message out via T&T's traditional media: {Read more}