In April 2018, Barbados will host it’s first electronic music festival. Running from the 4th until the 8th, the festival will be held in five different locations on each day; Farley Hill, Holetown, South Beach Zone, and the East and West coasts. The largest event will take place on the Saturday.
In a press release from The Confluence, the creative media agency which has partnered with the festival, Vujaday is described as “an entirely new experience” and “like nothing you have ever seen or felt before.” The press release also quoted festival co-founder Ryan Kruger as saying:
“We couldn’t be more excited to bring a major electronic festival to Barbados. The island is brimming with a vivid culture and amazing sights to take in, and we wanted to make sure that the festival format allowed for guests to experience more than just a single location while enjoying music from around the world.”
Kruger said in an interview with Caribbean Life that the popularity of electronic music has been growing on the island. Adding that “there has been a general shift towards destination style electronic music events like ours driven by a maturing fanbase…We are now eagerly anticipating launching sales as soon as mid August.”
Managing director of A&B Music Supplies, Norman Barrow, has been added to the Vujaday team to “ensure the local culture is well-represented.”
The line up will be announced at a later date, but will be “focused on different styles of house and techno, roping in internationally renowned DJs and local favourites”. In the mean time, guests can visit the Vujaday Music Fesitval website and register for updates concerning ticket and travel packages, promotions and e newsletters. You can also visit the festivals Facebook page.
Before we answer that, let us have a brief synopsis of the play. Good Looking was written and co-directed by Annette Alleyne. It’s about Tiquan (Jherad) following his dream to become a famous stripper, while keeping it a secret from his germophobic, narcissistic, sugar mama Gloria (Cassandra Odle). On Tiquan’s journey to stardom, we also meet his crazy best friend known as Buddy (Nelieux) who’s the catalyst behind Tiquan meeting the pretentious strip club owner known as ‘Madame Xotic’ (Yaisa Peter).
So what’s so great about Good Looking? The characters and the first half of the script, especially before the intermission.
The characters that stand out in this play for me personally have to be Tiquan, Sharkeisha, and the Maid. Tiquan, for starters, was a well-developed character from beginning to end. I am sure all of us who had the pleasure of viewing the play felt sorry for him every time he tried to do something to further himself, only be stopped dead in his tracks because of some hi-jinx between his best friend and Madame Xotic.
Some of the dialogue and transitions in the play were out of place and broke up the audience’s immersion. After the intermission, which dragged on way too long, we missed the obvious climax of an almost seamless evening. In story-telling of all kinds we’re taught to “show don’t tell.” What happened after the intermission was a drawn out recap of the party, that we the audience were looking forward to, along with all of the chaos that came with it. This in my humble opinion wasn’t a wise choice, however it did not ruin the overall fun factor of the piece.
The films (in the case of Raven by Shani Bannister, the pilot of a series), with the exceptions of Wildflower by Kerry-Lyn Coppin and Calypso Music: The Voice of Our People by Paul Forde, had the same issue; it was obvious what the filmmakers were trying to do but they didn’t quite do it. They introduced the ideas and conflicts that drove the story very well, but they then got lost. They needed more development – some more than others – to hit the targets that the filmmakers were aiming for.
Being Human by Stefan Forde was an almost entirely CGI film about a young man living in a world in which every aspect of person’s life is controlled by an AI and his quest for love. Despite the fact that the CGI and green screen did not look entirely finished and was missing entirely in some shots, Forde still deserves praise for executing his project in such an ambitious manner. Especially when, considering the aforementioned problem it shares with many of the other films, the story was still fairly well realised. Forde managed to craft an emotionally resonant film, with a lovely story.
The best, most touching and most moving film of this year’s Capstone group was Wildflower, by Kerry-lyn Coppin; a semi-biographical film about a young woman who grew up without a father, her relationship with her mother and her attempts to reach out to and bond with him. This was also a film with beautiful cinematography, it was well acted, the imagery was evocative and it was very well edited and written. It was just an altogether amazing film; engrossing and cathartic. Coppin did an incredible job with this production.
