Cliff
Teino Evans, Staff Reporter
IN A move to raise funds to help facilitate further research and development at the Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of the West Indies, Mona, postgraduate students there have joined their varied talents to stage a concert featuring Jimmy Cliff.
According to Cliff, he is very supportive of such an effort, as he feels that persons should always remember the root of their culture and be able to identify with it.
"It's culture and in this region and anywhere else it is very important for us to know and understand it and it is my hope that it will benefit others to come and that's why I'm supporting it. Most of us in the Caribbean are descendants from Africa and it is important for us to keep highlighting it, so that the next generations to come can develop and build on it," Cliff said.
'EVENING OF BLACK MAGIC'
The production is entitled 'An Evening of Black Magic' and according to Sonjah Stanley Niaah, researcher at the Institute of Caribbean Studies and member of the production team for the event, the initial idea that postgraduate students had conceptualised blended perfectly with Jimmy Cliff's release of Black Magic.
"Originally we had planned a concert with the theme 'Reclamation' and reclamation and Black Magic fitted quite nicely, so we decided that we would want Jimmy Cliff to headline the concert," she said.
In addition, Niaah says the support that the initiative had been getting is overwhelming and they hope to have such an event annually.
Some of the other postgraduate students that have offered their time and expertise include Ibo Cooper (School of Music), L'Antoinette Stines (L'Acadco Dance Company), Colin Leslie (music industry manager), Amina Blackwood Meeks (storyteller), Lenford Salmon (theatre), Deborah Hickling (TV production) and Miguel Williams (dub poet).
The event is scheduled to take place today at the Oriental Gardens, which adjoins the Mona Visitors' Lodge, UWI, and starts at 8 p.m.
