'OL' TIME something' is certain to come back once again this year, as the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) launched 'Jamaica Festival 2003' on Wednesday night.
The entire season is expected to, as always, fulfil the JCDC's mandate of unearthing and exposing talent. On Wednesday night, the JCDC showed off some of what patrons will see for the period celebrating Jamaica's 41st year of independence at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, Hope Road, St. Andrew.
The evening was dominated by performances rather speeches.
However, each performance represented an event that will make up the JCDC festival this year. Among the events which will take place are the Miss Jamaica Festival Queen, The Popular Song Contest, The JCDC National Gospel Song Competition, Festival of the Literary Arts, Photography and Art Competitions, Culinary Arts, Speech and Drama, Dance, Traditional Folk Form and a host of others.
One event that made a return last year and will be continued this year is the float parade. In addition, there will be a marching band segment.
Chairman of the JCDC, Mr.Vivian Crawford, who was present at the launch, thanked all those who made the event possible over the years.
"I want to thank the teachers for their work, as 80 per cent of our contestants are students. So we know that our teachers are helping to keep our dream alive," he said.
The reason for keeping his speech to so few words were realised at the start when the evening started.
TALENTS
Among the performers who showed a glimpse of what the talent level of the competition will be like were Clonmel Primary and Junior High in the Traditional Folk Forms section and Sheldon Sheperd in speech. Others who performed at the launch were Noreta Lewis, winner of the JCDC Gospel Song Competition, Jody-Ann Bowen and Devon Black, the winner of the Popular Song Contest.
They were aided by Fab Five, which filled in whenever necessary.
With Fitz Weir and Veronica Smith as an old couple telling the story of the creation of JCDC and its events, the evening was guaranteed to expose talent. Each event was described as a child. With each event there was a performance.
Sheldon Shepherd, 2002 Gold medallist in the Speech category, got the ball rolling with his poem Mi Want Waan House Fi Live In A, a piece that tells of his struggles of dealing with landlords and being conned by politicians close to elections. His efforts were much appreciated by the Ronnie Williams crowd, as applause and laughter dominated the crowd's response.
Fab Five chipped in for the Popular Song and talent search sections. The group did bits and pieces of the more popular festival song over the years. Among the numbers chosen were Toots and the Maytals' Bam Bam, Desmond Dekker's Intensify and Roy Rayon's Give Thanks And Praises.
For the talent search aspect, the band did songs from the popular Diwali rhythm. Among the songs that were performed were Get Busy and Overcome.
In the gospel segment Noreta Lewis, who won the competition in 2000, was on hand to perform her uptempo I'll Make It Through The Valley.
Jody-Ann Bowen represented the speech category with Rover. In her poem she depicted the life of a dog called Rover who pleaded for respect from humans due the tasks that dogs perform.
The opening of this year's festival by Minister of Education, Maxine Henry-Wilson, and the announcement of the dates for the various events by the reigning Miss Jamaica Festival Queen, Kaydeon Thomas, were the other highlights of the night.
