"BASSETERRE ALIVE!" IS TOMORROW ON FORT STREET FRIDAY DECEMBER 16TH 2011

Basseterre comes Alive on Forts Street from 12:00pm until 5:00pm with Local Food, Crafts, Activities and Entertainment.


LUNCH-TIME CONCERT 
12:00PM - 2:00PM
Legends Tent
Huggins Masquerade


AFTERNOON CONCERT 
 3:00PM - 5:00PM
Okolo Drummers
Latin Dance Group
National "Queen" Interviews
Phunnmakers Troupe


JOIN ST. KITTS DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE AND ST. KITTS AND NEVIS NATIONAL CARNIVAL COMMITTEE IN CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF CARNIVAL AND KITTITIAN CULTURE!

Press Release (15/12/11)

"Basseterre Alive!"

St. Kitts Department of Culture-

Research & Documentation Unit

Tel:: (869) 467-1396

Email: stkittsculture@gmail.com

"THE STORY OF CARNIVAL" PANEL DISCUSSION AT UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

THE STORY OF CARNIVAL- DECEMBER 13TH 2011 at UWI
St. Kitts and Nevis National Carnival is hosting a discussion on "The Story of Carnival" Tuesday December 13th 2011 8:00pm at the University of the West Indies Open Campus The Gardens St. Kitts with an impressive panel of contributors; Alphonso Barker, Stanley Franks, Alexis Knight, Cyril "Puntan" Webster, and Dauna Manchester.  This team of individuals when combined offers a wealth of experience and knowledge about the early development of National Carnival.

ALPHONSO BARKER can speak on all aspects of Carnival prior to 1971 with special emphasis on Folklore Street Theater.  He participated in Carnival as a Clown and his brother "The Mighty Kush" was the first Calypso King of St. Kitts.


STANLEY FRANKS can speak about all aspects of Carnival past and present including music and bands of the past.  As a Carnival Costume Builder he turned out some of the most creative and spectacular Carnival Queen Costumes.


ALEXIS KNIGHT served as an interim Chairman for National Carnival from 1972 to 1973 and had great involvement in all aspects of the Steel Band.  He is the first man to defy the status quo by taking the steel band the church.


CYRIL "PUNTAN" WEBSTER a Carnival pundit can speak on all aspects of the steel band and folklore.


DAUNA MANCHESTER served on the first National Carnival Committee as the Coordinator of National Carnival in 1971 and Children's Carnival.

Creighton Pencheon - Director of Culture, St. Kitts

Members of the public are invited to attend and participate.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=291885447515718&set=a.146086998762231.21687.144056438965287&type=1&theater

 For More Information Contact SKN National Carnival Office Tel: (869) 467-1539

Press Release (13/12/11)

"The Story of Carnival" - U.W.I. St. Kitts

St. Kitts Department of Culture

Research & 'Documentation Unit

Email: stkittsculture@gmail.com

Tel: (869) 467-1396

BASSETERRE ALIVE...COMING SOON! ON DECEMBER 16TH 2011

BASSETERRE ALIVE...COMING SOON! ON DECEBMER 16TH 2011-6:00PM FORT STREET, ST. KITTS
Join St. Kitts Department of Culture and St. Kitts and Nevis National Carnival Committee as we celebrate Kittitian Culture as part of the 40th Anniversary of Carnival!

Downtown Fort Street Basseterre will come Alive with food Vendors, Craft Vendors, Family Activities, Prize Give-Away's and Live Entertainment on the Main Stage at Central Street.  Action starts at 12:00pm!  This first time initiative is intended to be an annual event and is and opportunity for businesses in the area, vendors, artists, nationals and visitors on island to come together as ONE Community to celebrate Kittitian Culture. ITS ALL ABOUT THE COMMUNITY!

MAIN STAGE - Fort and Central Street Intersection Basseterre St. Kitts
LUNCH TIME CONCERTS 12:00PM - 2:00PM
Fusion Band
Jorf Attack Youth String Band
Legend Band and Calypsonian's
Carnival Costumes Display

AFTERNOON CONCERT 4:00PM- 6:00PM
Jason Stinging Ants Clowns
Latin Dance Group
National Youth Drum Corp
"Wuk Up and Big Drum" Dance Competition
Stephen Richards Pan Performance
Huggins Masquerade

WINNERS of "Basseterre Alive!" Competitions will be announced at the end of the Day.


DON'T MISS THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO BE A PART OF NATIONAL CARNIVAL CELEBRATIONS ON FRIDAY DEC. 16TH AND THROUGHOUT THE SEASON!
http://www.facebook.com/SKNCarnival?sk=app_208209315900235

For More Information Contact:  St. Kitts Department of Culture (869) 467-1415

Press Release (13/12/11)

"Basseterre Alive"

St. Kitts Department of Culture

Research & Documentation Unit

Email: stkittsculture@gmail.com

Tel (869) 467-1396

NGOMBULU YA SANGUI YA MINA BANTU LASCONY WILL LECTURE IN ST. KITTS MONDAY DECEMBER 2ND 2011 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO JOIN THE UNESCO ST. KITTS AND NEVIS SLAVE ROUTE PROJECT IN WELCOMING MR. NGOMBULU YA SANGUI YA MINA BANTU LASCONY TO GIVE A LECTURE ON MONDAY DECEMBER 2ND 2011 7:00PM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES


"..., NYSYMB LASCONY visited more than one hundred museums throughout the world, has attended over 300 concerts (especially jazz, blues and reggae), and visited Africa in 419 villages, 112 cities (all continents together). He toured Africa and Europe, performing in various jazz festivals as a poet".

"It was after reading "The philosophy and opinions of Marcus Garvey" that he finally committed to the History and Negro Art. He has travelled 23 countries in Africa, 18 from Europe, 11 in the Caribbean and America, camera in hand".


Since then, nearly two decades, the activist is useful lectures on jazz and on various historical subjects relating to the Negro question. He has performed as a lecturer in many schools, universities, Institutes, cultural centres, bookstores, libraries and museums :"

"N.Y.S.Y.M.B: Ngombulu Ya Sangui Ya Mina Bantu LASCONY was born in Brazzaville (Congo) and grew up in Paris (France). He is a man that multiplies multidisciplinary (writer, historiographer, researcher, poet, documentary film maker and jazz band leader) activities to defend a cause that he considers essential. The subjects of his documentaries betray his passion and commitment. Passion for History, jazz and Negro art. He has studied the history of Africa with the djelys (griots) in the greatest initiatory centres of the hinterland, music at the Conservatoire municipal de musique et de danse de Lagny sur Marne and cinema at the Ecole préparatoire aux metiers du cinéma et de l’audiovisuel. He knows and has played with many of the great jazz musicians of our time, and often spends his time in all the legendary places where this music is produced".

Video Links:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlhu12_une-elegie-pour-les-afrodescendants_travel#from=embed

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xisey1

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xis4yt

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xe4tjp

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xfqr1x

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdeqwc_daily2_webcam

Press Release(30/11/11)

"N.Y.S.Y.M.B. Lascony" -  U.W.I. St. Kitts

UNESCO  National Scientific Slave Route Project

St. Kitts Department of Culture

Research & Documentation Unit

Email: stkittsculture@gmail.com

Tel" (869) 467-1396

Ngombulu Ya Sangui Ya Mina Bantu COMES TO NEVIS FOR THE 2ND LECTURE OF THE UNESCO SLAVE ROUTE PROJECT

On Wednesday November 30th 2011 at 7:00pm join the "UNESCO St. Kitts and Nevis Scientific Slave Route Committee" in Nevis at the Red Cross Building to participate in the Lecture delivered by invited guest Ngombulu Ya Sangui Ya Mina Bantu LASCONY.


WRITER, HISTORIOGRAPHER, RESEARCHER, POET, DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKER AND JAZZ BAND LEADER

N.Y.S.Y.M.B: Ngombulu Ya Sangui Ya Mina Bantu LASCONY was born in Brazzaville (Congo) and grew up in Paris (France). He is a man that multiplies multidisciplinary (writer, historiographer, researcher, poet, documentary film maker and jazz band leader) activities to defend a cause that he considers essential. The subjects of his documentaries betray his passion and commitment. Passion for History, jazz and Negro art. He has studied the history of Africa with the djelys (griots) in the greatest initiatory centres of the hinterland, music at the Conservatoire municipal de musique et de danse de Lagny sur Marne and cinema at the Ecole préparatoire aux metiers du cinéma et de l’audiovisuel. He knows and has played with many of the great jazz musicians of our time, and often spends his time in all the legendary places where this music is produced.

It was after reading "The philosophy and opinions of Marcus Garvey" that he finally committed to the History and Negro Art. He has travelled 23 countries in Africa, 18 from Europe, 11 in the Caribbean and America, camera in hand. He made more than half of his journeys with his wife and children to prepare for the rotation. His aim is to show the other side of Africa, the laughing, singing, creating, and not one that reaches out to receive alms. The books can be read and understood by those who are literate, while images can be more easily interpreted, even by the illiterate. Apart from his innumerable adventures, NYSYMB LASCONY visited more than one hundred museums throughout the world, has attended over 300 concerts (especially jazz, blues and reggae), and visited Africa in 419 villages, 112 cities (all continents together). He toured Africa and Europe, performing in various jazz festivals as a poet.

Since then, nearly two decades, the activist is useful lectures on jazz and on various historical subjects relating to the Negro question. He has performed as a lecturer in many schools, universities, Institutes, cultural centres, bookstores, libraries and museums :...

HIS AIM IS TO POPULARIZE KNOWLEDGE, BECAUSE IGNORANCE IS THE MAIN SOURCE OF INCOMPREHENSION BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS. "A man who travelled a lot does not carry prejudices in his luggage", he concludes. When the history books and the foreign media caricature Africa is a duty for one (or) who is born to correct this false image. That is why he has just completed two series of documentary titled "Portrait of Engineering African" and "Africa: the hidden beauty", a long journey that takes us from the coast of the Zambezi River to Sahel. Monumental works for those who can not move. He combines poetry with jazz, mixtures know orchestrated by a man who knows how to absorb profound texts.

NYSYMB LASCONY may claim to have made more than 150 presentations and lectures on the histories of old Africa’s empires, Jazz and Pan-Africanism which he is one of the best (in the francophone zone). His motto is: FAITH, DETERMINATION, and COURAGE. These three elements are, according to him essential to the course. He refuses to be locked in a category, although the majority of those who met him described as the "GLOBE TROTTER FAMILY".

When people ask him " who finance his journeys?", he always replies with a smile to the question, that at he (or she) who knows the price of freedom must have the resources, simply by working. Life is a choice. There are those who prefer to collect cars, jewels and those who prefer to have a library full of books, although all three options are not mutually exclusive. That hunger justifies the means. NYSYMB LASCONY chose the second option, that of his sacrifice material comforts to live fully his passions".


Ref: Biography http://www.myspace.com/nysymb_lascony


Videos Links:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlhu12_une-elegie-pour-les-afrodescendants_travel#from=embed

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xisey1

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xis4yt

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xe4tjp

http://www.dailymotion.com/NGOMBULU#videoId=xfqr1x

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdeqwc_daily2_webcam


For more information about attending the lecture contact Chesley Davis at 
NEVIS CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION
                      Rawlins Business Complex
                      Stoney Grove, Nevis. W.I.

                      Tel: (869) 469-5521 Ext: 2142/2283
                      Tel/Fax: (869) 469-1889
                      Email: ncdfoundation08@hotmail.com

Press Release(28/11/11)

"N.Y.S.Y.M.B. Lascony"

UNESCO  National Scientific Slave Route Project

St. Kitts Department of Culture

Research & Documentation Unit

Email: stkittsculture@gmail.com

Tel" (869) 467-1396

"RESISTANCE IN ST. KITTS" - LECTURE SERIES - UNESCO NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SLAVE ROUTE PROJECT

On Tuesday November 8th 2011 at 7:00pm "UNESCO National Scientific Slave Route Project" Committee invites the General Public to a lecture hosted at the University of the West Indies located at The Gardens Basseterre St. Kitts presented by keynote speaker Victoria Borg O'Flaherty entitled, "RESISTANCE IN ST. KITTS".

"Victoria Borg O'Flaherty is the Director of Archives at the National Archives of St. Kitts-Nevis.  She has a degree in History from the University of Malta and an M. Litt. in Archives and Records Management from the University of Dundee.  She was the secretary of the Caribbean Branch of the International Congress on Archives (CARBICA) from 2003 to 2005 and has served and continues to serve on several Advisory Committees dealing with education and culture.  In 2009 she coordinated the Caribbean's successful proposal for the inclusion of the Slave Registers of the Caribbean  in the UNESCO Memory of the World listing and produced the website www.historicbasseterre.com  Her research interests include Kittitian Labour history and resistance to enslavement.  Her research has been featured in a number of prestigious books on Archival Studies and History".

The UNESCO National Scientific Slave Route Committee plans to have a series of lectures that attempt to stimulate dialogue about coming to terms with our colonial past in order to move into the future with a positive outlook.  "The Lecture Series will be organized around three sub‐themes entitled “The Decolonization of the African Mind – An Imperative for the Future”; “Towards a Pan‐Africanist Manifesto: Caribbean Civilization in the context of African Renaissance” and “Demystifying the Reparations Debate”. It will explore and encourage debate about the deeper ontological and epistemological characteristics of the “African‐condition”, i.e. what it means to be a person of African descent in a world which leaves no 

room for who and what we are as “black” people and where the “universal” seems to naturally mean 

“white” (which includes the values and belief systems, and knowledge bases that underpin the Eurocentric 

political, economic and cultural world order in which we live today).

The Series will seek to explore this notion of “Afrian‐ness” and what it means to be part of a community whose experience appears to be “…unique, with its deportation of populations, its transfer of people 

from one continent to another, its distant memories of old beliefs, its fragments of murdered cultures”

(Cesaire, 2004, 82). It will expose the central violence dealt by the Maafa on the African indigenous 

people and people of African origin – the “deculturalization” of the African mind. “Deculturalization” is 

the term used by the enlightened black intelligentsia to refer to the three‐part process designed and 

perfected by the European ruling elite that 1) denigrates and alienates blacks from their African cultural 

heritage, i.e, African languages, religions, customs etc; 2) teaches them to value only the cultural 

orientations, i.e. languages, religions, customs etc, of Europeans and 3) to assimilate them into a Eurocentric 

political, economic, social and cultural order as their faithful supporters and defenders.

The 

deculturalization of the African mind is the root cause behind the apparent intergenerational 

predisposition among Africans and people of African descent to embrace dysfunction and disunity 

within the family and community, “conceptual incarceration”1 and ‘learned indifference”2. It is only 

through a rejection of its underlying tenets and the embrace of “African‐ness” through the 

“decolonization” of the mind can Africans and persons of African descent counter the Maafa and begin 

to conceptualize and envision an alternative and global project of society and civilization steeped in 

African cultural norms and fuelled by a spirit of collective solidarity". Nery's Chiverton - Committee Member, UNESCO Scientific Slave Route Project

Press Release (07/11/11)

"Resistance in St. Kitts"

UNESCO  National Scientific Slave Route Project

St. Kitts Department of Culture

Research & Documentation Unit

Email: stkittsculture@gmail.com

Tel" (869) 467-1396

"DRUM IT UP" DRUMMING EXPO - FRIDAY NOVEMBER 4TH 2O11 AT CARNIVAL VILLAGE

Sweet Sounds will be hosting a Youth Drumming Expo, the first ever of its kind, under the theme "Drum It Up".  This event will be held on Friday November 4th, 2011 at Carnival Village at 7:00pm.  The Youth Drumming Expo will showcase over fifteen (15) young men from St. Kitts performing in two(2) segments: the first segment, the young men (accompanied by other musicians/band) will be drumming original pieces arranged by themselves and the second segment, the young men would be doing solo pieces.

HISTORY OF "SWEET SOUNDS" EVENT

In an effort to promote Acoustic Drumming in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis,Sweet Sounds hosted a six (6) day workshop from August 15^th – 20^th, 2011 at the Beach Allen Primary School for youths ranging from 8 – 17 years of age.

The objectives of the workshop were:

·         To educate the Federation’s Youth about the art of Acoustic Drumming;

·         To preserve such music that is indigenous to our culture;

·         To motivate and discipline our youths that appear to have resorted to deviant behaviour.

The Workshop consisted of approximately forty (40) participants (boys and girls) and five (5) facilitators including Mr. Oflyn “One Boot” Rogers, Kapeto, Mr. Anelto Wilkin and Mr. Marvin Shelford.  Over the course of the Workshop, the participants learned techniques and different types of drumming as well as learning to possess the right attitude in life and reaching for goals.  The participants were taught/trained using different mediums such as videos and practical application.

The Workshop climaxed with an energizing expedition of music and drumming talent on Saturday, August 20^th, 2011 in the Independence Square.  This event was sponsored by LIME.   The presentations showcased what was learned by the various participants over the course of the week.  Onlookers, supporters and parents were marvelled at the presentation.  At the end of the showcase in the Square, the participants were presented with a bag pack sponsored by LIME and drum sticks and T-Shirts sponsored by National Bank. 

 In promotion of the above mentioned Expo, Sweet Sounds hosted another expedition in the Independence Square on Friday, October 7^th, 2011 from 4:00pm.  This expedition showcased sample performances of the wonderful, skillful art of Acoustic Drumming by the participants of the Drumming Expo.  Just a taste of what is to come!

Press Release (13/10/11)

By Atnel Pemberton - Sweet Sounds"Drum It Up"

St. Kitts Department of Culture

Research & Documentation Unit

Email: stkittsculture@gmail.com

Tel: (869) 467-1396