Promoting Guyanese Arts,Culture overseas

By Venessa Deosaran

The Guyana Cultural Association of New York’s mission is to document, showcase and celebrate the multiple roots of Guyana’s cultural heritage. Through its work, the association preserves Guyanese cultural heritage, and makes it available through various channels, to inspire future generations of Guyanese at home and abroad.
The Guyana Folk Festivals, launched by the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation during the early 1980s, can be identified as one of the forces that inspired the current Guyana Cultural Association of New York (GCA), Inc.
The not-for-profit organization has organized the annual Guyana Folk Festival in New York, which is recognized as the largest “summer festival of Guyanese culture”.
Making history
In 1998, Guyanese immigrants Claire Goring and Maurice Bledman organized the first Guyana Folk Festival on the grounds of Wingate High School.  Both were active participants in Guyana’s cultural life from the early post-independence years through the l980s.
Claire Goring had established a formidable reputation as a graphic artist and designer of the festival arts; Bledman was known as innovative cinematographer in the Guyana Film Centre.
Goring and Bledman organized a second folk festival in 2000 on the roof gardens of the famous Brooklyn Children’s Museum.  In both these ventures, a cadre of Guyanese immigrant volunteers supported them, and the public’s reception of the two folk festivals was encouraging.
In 2001, Goring, Bledman and other New York-based Guyanese immigrants: Claire Patterson, Malcolm Hall and

GCA executives at the premiere of CineGuyana films in 2011

Tangerine Clarke, decided to repurpose the dormant Guyana Cultural Association of New York with the approval of the old Board.
In 2001, Malcolm Hall was elected president of GCA, and served as president until 2010.  Goring was elected cultural director, Claire Patterson treasurer, and Dr Vibert Cambridge vice-president.
The members of the current executive committee of the GCA board are Dr Vibert Cambridge, president; Ave Brewster Haynes, vice president; Claire Goring, cultural director; Claire Patterson-Monah, treasurer; Dr Juliet Emanuel, secretary; Edgar Henry, assistant to the treasurer; Rose October-Edun, assistant to the secretary, and Maurice Braithwaite, assistant to the cultural director.  They all play vital roles in promoting and preserving Guyanese culture abroad.
GCA’s programs
The past and current work of the organization illustrates their efforts. One such programme is the Guyana Folk Festival – the organization’s annual focal point.
That annual folk festival hosts the following events: awards ceremony, the symposium, literary hang, art exhibition, film and video festival, ‘Come to my Kwe Kwe’, the Caribbean Heritage Summer Camp, performing arts season, and family fun day.
Over the years the events that comprise this festival have expanded, and the season has extended from a one week period to more than three months.
Since 2003, the annual awards ceremony has become the way the organization recognizes and celebrates Guyanese achievements and contributions to Guyanese life. GCA’s annual symposia are events that explore and celebrate some theme or aspect of Guyanese cultural heritage.  They provide space for sharing new research and scholarship.
In 2008, the symposium ‘Celebrating Mac:  Folk, Identity and National Cohesion’ was held in Guyana.  In 2012, the symposium ‘Masquerade Lives’ will again be held in Guyana in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports.
Begun in 2007, the literary hang is an annual gathering of Guyanese writers, to explore the art and craft of writing, sharing of new works, exploring technique, and networking.  It also serves as a venue for launching new publications.
Godfrey Chin’s decisive publication “Nostalgia”, was launched at the inaugural literary hang, while Cynthia Nelson’s “Tastes Like Home” was launched in 2011. The event was also used to promote the Guyana Classics Series in 2011.
New York has a vibrant community of Guyanese artists and collectors, and GCA members play important roles in this community.  One such role is curating special exhibitions.
In 2011, the first exhibition of Guyanese artists in the diaspora was organized as part of the events to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Guyana Cultural Association of New York, Inc.
Launched in 2008, the Caribbean Summer Heritage Camp is a relatively new initiative.  This New York Department of Education endorsed initiative, is dedicated to propagating Guyanese and Caribbean cultural heritage.  It gives recognition of the similarity of Caribbean heritage and the common ground of residence in New York.
The performing arts festival annual event showcases Guyanese drama and the range of talents associated with the performing arts: lighting, sound, set design, acting, costuming, make up, and acting.
Under the leadership of Maurice Braithwaite, the annual performing arts season is also a mentoring space and a dynamic link with the community.
The home for the annual performing arts festival is Brooklyn’s Myer Levin High School for the Performing Arts.  In 2011, the Performing Arts Season presented the world premiere of Francis Farrier’s adaptation of C.L. R. James’s “Minty Alley”.
The organization has also supported research and scholarship.  Dr Gillian Richards-Greaves conducted important research for her dissertation on Kwe Kwe at the annual Come to My Kwe Kwe events.  GCA is proud of the support it has given to Guyanese ethnomusicologist Rohan Sagar as he pursued his graduate studies.
Using new media to preserve old traditions
The Guyana Cultural Association of New York Inc. has recognized that Guyanese have been using film, and more recently video, as means of artistic expression and documenting Guyanese life and history.  The annual film and video festival provides a space for exhibiting and evaluating that aspect of creativity.  In 2011, GCA hosted the North American premiere of the eight short-films produced by CineGuyana through the President’s Film Endowment Fund.
‘Come to My Kwe Kwe’, usually held the Friday night before Labour Day, is an annual event, and is one of the important community-building events of the Folk Festival season.  This event “marries” education (on the origins and process) of the folk tradition with community dancing, singing of Guyanese folk songs, and heritage foods. Non-Guyanese brides and grooms–to-be are regular participants at Kwe Kwe nights.
In recent year’s attendees have included Guyanese from other parts of the Guyanese diaspora (Canada, U.K., and Venezuela) and non-Guyanese.
Videos produced at these events have become important “teaching aids” in the Kwe Kwe resurgence that has been noted in urban Guyana in recent years.
GCA has a number of regular publications; the magazine Guyana Folk and Culture is produced annually to coincide with annual folk festival season.  The online magazine is published monthly, and the online radio programme “Let’s Talk Folk” is produced weekly from the studios of One Caribbean Radio (105.1HD2) in Brooklyn, New York.
Fun days, collaborations and kudos
The family fun day event, usually held on the Sunday before Labour Day, is an important moment in the cultural calendar of Guyanese in New York, and increasingly so for the Guyanese diaspora in the USA.
Families get together for a day of folk games, heritage food, music and performances by Guyanese from “home” and from the diaspora.  Over the years, Guyanese leaders who may be visiting New York during this period would attend.
Stellar Guyanese performers have graced the stages at the family fun day, including Kenton Wyatt and the Kendrum group from Canada; Angela Douglas, who presented youth dance ensemble from Canada, and the distinguished London-based Guyanese flautist, Keith Waithe, who has participated in two family fun days.  Dave Martins, Eze Rockcliffe, and the Classique Dance Company have also performed at family fun day.  The Guyana Cultural Association of New York, Inc. has collaborated with other Guyanese organizations on innovative cultural events such as the Festival of Drums with the Rajkumari Cultural Centre in Queen’s New York.  In 2005, GCA collaborated with the Guyana Tri-State Alliance in mobilizing the diaspora’s response to the flood of the same year.
GCA works very closely with the many alumni and hometown associations in New York and the annual family fun day event provide opportunities for these alumni and hometown associations to publicize their services and raise funds.
GCA has facilitated the promotion of Guyanese music through the compilation CD “Is We Thing- Music Orchids for You” (2005).
The leadership of GCA has received several prestigious awards from important state and local agencies in New York.  The Brooklyn Arts Council has collaborated with GCA on highly successful events such as Moonlight Storytelling.
Caribbean performers have a presence during family day, and GCA and the Caribbean Cultural Theatre collaborate on many initiatives throughout the year.  GCA’s primary goal is to establish the Guyana Cultural Association Centre by 2016, when it will be celebrating the organization’s 15th anniversary.
For more information on GCA, visit www.guyfolkfest.com  (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)