Kingston to showcase, celebrate African culture

African culture will be on display at St William Grant Park on May 25. The occasion is to celebrate African Liberation Day, and is part of the celebrations to commemorate 140 years of Kingston as the capital of Jamaica. Mayor of Kingston Angela Brown Burke said the concert was also part of the wider Jamaica 50 celebrations.

“I believe that there is no way Kingston should not be host (of both activities) so we decided to start there,” she said. The mayor said the event, which will be an annual one, is being planned with a multi-stakeholder team with representatives from the South African High Commission, Nigerian High Commission and Senegalese Embassy, liaising with local bodies like the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.

She said booths from the various groups will be open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with items compassing various aspects of African culture. The idea is to showcase a little of our proud, local history but also for Jamaicans to see the history of our African ancestors up close. The day is under the theme, ‘Nation On A Mission, Celebrating Its Cultural History’. There is no admission fee.

There will also be a concert starting at noon and featuring some of Jamaica’s best music, speech and dance performers. Artistes slated for the concert include Tony Rebel, Yasus Afari, Roy Rayon, Mutabaruka, as well as the popular Dance Xpressionz group. Lesser known performers include the Royal African Soldiers and the Rekaka Drummers. Mayor Brown Burke said there actually would be quite a few community-based performers like East Kingston’s Denise Spice on the show.

“We had a low budget and really didn’t have much time to plan, but we also do believe that we have some very good talent that we want to highlight,” she explained. The South African movie, The Choir, will also be shown. The plot revolves around a group of inmates in Leeukwop Prison, South Africa’s largest prison, who are not only trying to win the National Prisoner Choir Competition, but are also trying to survive their day-to-day trials.

The foreign missions, will not only have their booths, but will have wine and food tasting, giving local taste buds a chance to sample their culinary delights.

SOURCE: Jamaica Star

Author Profile

Administrator: ... refers to representatives of entities such as embassies, entertainment industry, creative force whose submitted work gets published on this site. Views expressed here may not necessarily represent those of the owner of this site, but are being published in the interest of the wider public. Link me here