18 thoughts on “Official Opening of the National Academy for the Performing Arts”

1. Getting excited over the appearance of the National Academy for the Performing Arts should not blind people to the lack of transparency and accountability over its construction.

   Putting on a gala show and encouraging folks to sing and dance in praise of this monument will not wash away all the questions and allegations of corruption that surrounds this and other projects.

   What is promoted for culture in Trinidad and Tobago retards real cultural development. Our culture is not consciously evolving towards resolving social issues and inspiring greater levels of creativity. Culture is mostly used as a political tool while expressions that challenge the colonial status quo and the political party in power are suppressed. What should be promoted or developed is not derived from dialogue and consensus involving the majority of ordinary people. Instead, what gets widespread promotion is assessed by cosmetic and political considerations in the upper echelons of political parties and by others whose main interest is to make money.

   This Arts Centre is simply another monument to corruption.

   1. God help these people, for once you will not stop and realize what this building has in store for us……….just another set of negative individuals…………let us see what kamla will do………..don’t be shock when sh*t starts to happen

2. Academy ‘too big’ for theatre crowd
   Multi-Cacique Award winner Raymond Choo Kong says the National Academy for the Performing Arts was not built for local theatre productions.

   In whose interest, really?
   It would be churlish for anyone to deny the magnificence and indeed opulence of the just completed National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA).

3. Hi all,
   I’ve started an online petition to protest and ask for accountability over the expenditure of the $2M flag. This is the link

   http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/gary-hunt-must-go

   Please sign and spread the word about it. Enough is Enough!!

4. It took us more than forty years to finally get a National Library worthy of Trinipride. Now we have a performing arts center, that rivals the library.
   I remember the old wooden building on the campus of the Woodbrook Secondary School, that housed the Trinidad Theater Workshop, which was later demolished to expand the school. In all this time, artists in TnT were like the proverbial “wandering jews”. Now, there is a place to call home.Beryl McBurnie, and her sister Freida Artman, along with Vere Achong must be dancing in heaven, along with the chorus of calypsonians, steelbandsmen, chutney singers and paranderos who went to the ancestors without seeing this.
   The usual carpers will get busy, of course. Do we have art worthy of this? Couldn’t we put in new water mains instead? “I waiting for a house so long” and so on. We build highways worthy of good drivers, which we still have not got, we build a port unworthy of some of the rustbuckets that park up there. And new hotels that symbolize hope. We put trash cans on the beach, that are not used, and toilets for the public to use.

   We hope, we hope, we hope.

5. No cause for complaints
   Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs Minister Marlene Mc Donald says critics of the National Academy for the Performing Arts are complaining for absolutely no reasonable cause. Mc Donald said so while speaking with reporters after the official launch of the Theatre Arts Company of T&T at the academy on Saturday night. “I say to (the critics) them, come, look at the production, look at what we are giving to our youths in the country, and the rest (cost) wouldn’t matter…I think we complain without cause,” she said.

6. I believe it is one of the greatest achievements for T&T and we the people should appreciate the much awaited Academy this will open many doors and encourage young people to GET UP AND GET… GET INVOLVED… and feel APPRECIATED!

   O how I wish it was around in my school days for many extremely talented friends would have surely benefited and contributed.

7. What are you talking about? One of the greatest achievements?
   What else is on your list? Don’t be deceived by the “Academy” in the name, there is no plan to use this monument of disrespect for anything at all, especially not anything related to local culture. Fear not, for you may still return to school but please do not subject yourself to the failed education system that breeds criminals as stagnant moat waters breed mosquitoes.

   1. Athiest – like you doh believe in anyting good atall atall!
      You say: ” please do not subject yourself to the failed education system that breeds criminals as stagnant moat waters breed mosquitoes” – what dotishness.

      Because there are parents who do not guide their children, because the failed system of family life, causes many children to be left behind, how can you blame the education system.

      Sorry, but the system of education has not failed our children. Today, a higher percentage of our youth receive tertiary education than their American, Canadian or British counterparts. Have you gone on our UWI Campus and seen the thousands of our children being educated there? Have you visited Roytec or any of the COSTATT campuses and seen the hundreds of our young adults and older population taking these courses?

      It is apparent to me that you must be one of those bred like ‘stagnant moat waters’ mosquitoes.

8. It is nice to see that Trinidad is progressing in the right direction. I am fed-up of the nay-sayyer everytime something new is erected in Trinidad, it is call progress people. I live in the USA and I am very proud of my country. I get a sense of joy when I see Trinidad hosting commonwealth meetings etc.

   1. Thanks finally a positive person

9. Mariannette, thank you for proving my point.
   “Because there are parents who do not guide their children, because the failed system of family life, causes many children to be left behind, how can you blame the education system.”
   Where did these parents come from? Where did we get this failed system of family life ? It certainly was not that bad before the murder rate started to rise faster than the tall buildings.

   When you say that children are being left behind, you have to be more specific. Children are being left behind in academics because those who are not academically inclined(interested in academics) are given a place in secondary school and told that if they don’t succeed they are worthless.This is why the many persons in the social programs that prepare them for the world of work, feel that that they are less human than those with secondary and university education.

   The government is to blame for this but this time it is the UNC government(not ignoring that this one has done little to rectify the problem). Everyone has a part to play but Trinbagonians have been programmed to worship any holder of a PhD, MDs and lawyers. We still think that life is about earning the money. “If yuh doh learn yuh work, how yuh go get a good job and a nice car.” This is how parents and teachers in this country motivate students. So what happens when the academic achievements are beyond your reach?

   “Have you gone on our UWI Campus and seen the thousands of our children being educated there? Have you visited Roytec or any of the COSTATT campuses and seen the hundreds of our young adults and older population taking these courses?”

   If you think that taking courses equates with education I see how you could have misinterpreted my earlier comment. Education is what will solve the problems of family life, which you are concerned with, and almost all of the problems that worry me. A system of education that completely ignores culture is a failure.

   I refuse to respond to the confused american.

   1. I am not convinced one way or the other, but I do believe that the education system is geared toward producing income earners rather than thinkers, entrepreneurs, inventors, the people that impacts on society. “Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The purpose of education has been lost along the journey to become educated. Had our education been effective, we would not be blaming family life for our problems. An effective education system would not be churning out men who abandon their children, to father other children to yet again walk out on them. An effective education system would ensure that we produce a society of varied skills rather than a hand full of academics, of which, most migrate to better paying jobs. Had our education system been effective we would not have had to use foreign experts to develop POS our nation.
      To put the blame entirely on family life is limited view of this issue. There are single mothers in this country who work two jobs under the worst conditions; they are exploited under a minimum wage, whilst their children are forced to fend for themselves most of the time. Mind you there are those parents who just don’t give a damn, but to broad brush all would substantiate that our education has in fact failed us.

   2. I am not convinced one way or the other, but I do believe that the education system is geared toward producing income earners rather than thinkers, entrepreneurs, inventors, the people that impacts on society. “Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The purpose of education has been lost along the journey to become educated. Had our education been effective, we would not be blaming family life for our problems. An effective education system would not be churning out men who abandon their children, to father other children to yet again walk out on them. An effective education system would ensure that we produce a society of varied skills rather than a hand full of academics, of which, most migrate to better paying jobs. Had our education system been effective we would not have had to use foreign experts to develop POS our nation.
      To put the blame entirely on family life is limited view of this issue. There are single mothers in this country who work two jobs under the worst conditions; they are exploited under a minimum wage, whilst their children are forced to fend for themselves most of the time. Mind you there are those parents who just don’t give a damn, but to broad brush all would substantiate that our education has in fact failed us.

10. Athiest said the following:- “A system of education that completely ignores culture is a failure.” He just might be on to something here with this somewhat novel ,and refreshing examination of the subject of education.
    I would caution him however , for in a calaloo ,mixup multicultural society like ours ,where does a coherent, cohesive ,and distinctive emerge from ,when each and every race instead of finding an equal place , are competing to see who can convince the other of their superiority?
    Why for example do you believe genocide was condoned amongst some nations and people over the centuries?
    America until mass immigration took place after slavery ended ,knew and benefited from the fact that they were superior WASPY European Englishmen plain and simple. Loving Canadians likewise- that destroyed native folks cultures – fully understood that they too were either of noble French or English stock , until Trinis and a bunch of desperate Third Worlders started to store away on planes , and lie to immigration authorities in attempts to making the land of the Maple leaf their homes at all cost. Australians knew that they were the by products of Irish and English drunks, vagabonds , and criminals , and therefore had no compunction in destroying all black Aboriginal life and culture ,so as to insert their own high end brand. White sadistic Dutch and English in barbaric Apartheid South Africa had no problems subjugating majority Bantu Africans to decades of degradations , and slept well at nights even as they used desperate South Asians to play their dirty cultural games.
    Where this leaves sweet cosmopolitan T&T is anyone’s guess. You do the maths atheist. Perhaps that Darwinian evolutionary theory you like can offer explanation , but you can only learn that if you go to more establish elite local high schools, en route to Ivy college and Universities abroad, eh? Belling the cat is never an easy task my friend, whether it is a Siberian tiger monster, a South Asian Bengal tiger , or one of the Powerful King of the Beast/lions from the Safari plains of Kenya, or Zimbabwe.
    I wish you well.

11. Neal is right again. If you ask a Trinibagonian about their culture, the response that you may receive could be about something that originated outside of the Trinidad and Tobago. The identity of Trinidad and Tobago from a unified cultural perspective does not exist.
    In China for example, the Han are the majority, but the minorities in China are also Chinese.
    In Trinidad and Tobago, there isn’t much assimilation which makes it difficult to pinpoint culture. Most western world nations aren’t ready for that.

12. http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article?id=161579554

    I have often heard Trinbagonians boast of a multicultural society as if there was harmony amongst the different cultural groups but it is clearly a clash of cultures. Worse still, is the way the youth adopt foreign culture, especially that of jamaica and america.

    I recall a childhood friend of mine who insisted that his shoes were better than mine because they were “snow shoes” from canada. Another prided himself on wearing long-sleeved, turtle-neck T-shirts that came from a relative in america. I was amused, back then, to see these fools making themselves suffer in our tropical climate but now I realise that it runs much deeper than that.

    Sorry, Neal, but I don’t think that forceful methods are being used anymore. The question is – Why are we so quick to abandon our own? Why, after all this time, have we not unified this country?

13. Speaking of Chinese construction workers , why does ‘Kamela’s pit-bull,’ Jack Warner not leave our PM and or fine President in waiting uncle Manning alone when it comes to this thorny issue of building his expensive church?
    Other bigger ,and much more relevant questions would be asked if we were blessed with an Opposition party with a pulse, but since such is not the case ,we must instead confront this time waster , on an obvious slow news day .
    We in T&T like many global citizens , must deal with prevailing frightening , economically precarious developments in the financial world. Added to that, unemployment is high, and our government repeatedly shows contempt towards all local experts , and tend to give away monies to any foreign company, advisors, and consultants it can dredged up be they from the Scotland Yard anti kidnapping security gurus, Israeli secret crime police , and now pro non regulated, Chinese engineers and their collection cheap slave laborers hell bent on grabbing oil for lofty ‘white elephants’ un required show piece projects .
    The question that Jack the trickster should be asking, instead is when in the words of Kaisonian Black Stalin ,would ‘Mr. Divider,’ be prepared to ‘run something,’ and or show some love for the people of our country, especially in the highly lucrative construction industry?
    We know that since the publicized UNC orchestrated Airport fiascos, and Caroni bridge/ crane collapses, you have little faith in the ‘ Trini boobol’ inclined, construction chieftains with the penchant for financial kickbacks , inflationary bidding practices , and politically motivated , governmental sabotages, but still what gives ,and where is the love you promised us?
    I for one could care less if the PNM choose to construct a few more Trini phony Muslim ,local madrases to keep Bakr and his sleeper cells henchmen quite, UNC hierarchy if elected ,decides to expand the Maha Saba into every village along the entire East/West corridors as a way of teaching the kinky headed idiots a more refined culture, or Manning in his waning political days ,wants to build 100 more Christian churches in health care deficient Trinidad , and demand that the elders and Reverents start each service with a wining contest that could rival the one that 14 year old ,party freak preacherman’s daughter Deena Alleyne , put on with dry humper Akon, while he was performing at Zen club years ago, in our conservative nation. This as we recalled , once more exposed Trinis as a bunch of confused , misguided ,gullible , ‘happy go lucky,’ jokers waiting to again be used and abused , just like 1990 , when pseudo Imam Bakr’s conducted his social, religious/ criminal meltdowns in front of the global cameras, thus ensuring that we again become the objects of scorn and derision the world over.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23yaf_akon-in-trinidad_fun

    Some much better informed than I might say , there is a positive correlation between high spirituality , and that of crime,as more could translate to less , but they could be wrong.
    Talk about a comedy of errors ! I wonder what a certain one time, English trained ,Shakespearean actor – com lawyer/ and leading politician, would have to say about that ,if only he could still hold off the pending political coup he is about to experience under one of his finest , and loyal female disciples?
    Perhaps it’s that not ‘over until the fat lady sings,’in this case , or better yet ,the Privy Council , and local jailers comes knocking ?

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