Highlights from NIFCA Performing Arts Gala Offer Diverse Talents in Music, Dance, and Theatre

This year’s NIFCA Performing Arts Gala was a smorgasbord of satisfying award-winning artistic treats.

Titled Reflections, the four-hour show held recently at the Wildey Gymnasium served patrons 20 performances, 18 of which were the gold and silver award entries in the disciplines of music, dance and theatre.

The other two were poems by Dr Denise Charles (I Saw An Old Man) and Kenneth Jack Lewis (Boys Eating) which are included in the National Cultural Foundation’s first audiobook Kaleidoscope And Other Writings launched last week Sunday.

Starting with the lively silver award-winning performance of Tombres De Alba, a drum piece from the Haynesville Youth Club, and ending with the exhilarating double gold award-winning Christ Church Foundation Steel Orchestra’s Soca is Life, the gala was a reminder that excellence abounds in the 246.

This event is where people who might not have attended the finals of the specific disciplines get to see first-hand what the panel of judges did and scored accordingly. It also provides a platform for the performers to showcase their talent without the pressure of competition conditions before, perhaps, a larger audience.

And what a show it was, with performances from the gold awardees affirming the judges’ decision that they were deserving of the top awards.

In music, Skyy Dowridge blew the audience away with an awesome rendition of My Way, one of her two entries this year. Master of ceremonies Margaret Allman-Goddard said the 12-year-old singer received the highest gold award in music this year for this entry and a silver award for her performance of United in The Caribbean.

Reigning Junior Soca Monarch Kymani Mr Showman Devonish, who also copped a gold award, delivered a great performance of the classic John King song How Many More, and St Luke’s Academy students were delightful and animated as they sang Mama in Bridgetown that includes the folk song (I gine tell me mama don’t send me down dey) and Mighty Gabby’s Bridgetown and Emmerton.

Double silver awardees The Cyptones, accompanied by their St Cyprian’s Boys’ School band, thrilled the audience with another entertaining performance of Icons of Calypso, a medley that pays tribute to Red Plastic Bag (Can’t Find Me Brudda and Volcano), Mighty Gabby (Jack), Mighty Grynner (Leggo I Hand) and Edwin Yearwood and krosfyah (Yardie). They always seem to enjoy performing this and audiences enjoy it even more.

In theatre arts, poet and spoken word artist Akeem Chandler-Prescod performed his hard-hitting, thought-provoking piece Monsters Aren’t Real with the aplomb that demonstrated why he won the only gold award in this area for the second consecutive year. Vivid imagery and provocative metaphors were his weapons of choice as he showed his linguistic prowess that earned him another nomination for the Prime Minister’s Scholarship and one for the Founder’s Award.