Hails Culturama 39 a success
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – DEPUTY PREMIER and Minister of Culture in the Nevis Island Administration the Hon. Mark Brantley said he is happy that the attempt to boycott the Culturama J’Ouvert activity failed. He even opined that the attempt actually had a reversed effect.
In an exclusive interview with SKNVibes, Brantley explained what he described as a scheme designed to thwart the success of the J’Ouvert of Nevis’ premier festival.
He said this turn of events is “sad”, especially since there was a clear and traditional understanding that while Carnival is being held in St. Kitts no events are held in Nevis and, on the converse, when Culturama is being held in Nevis no events are held in St.Kitts.
“There was a tremendous plot orchestrated politically by agents of the Labour Party and the agents – sadly – of the NRP to boycott J’Ouvert jam session on Nevis. And it is ironic because for some nearly 30 years now the understanding was and has always been that during Culturama there are no activities organised in St. Kitts and equally during Carnival there are no activities organised on Nevis.
“And later when Music Festival was introduced, we continued and extended that for Music Festival. Once Music Festival is happening, we do not give permission to hold events to conflict with Music Festival. So that has been an understanding that has existed for nearly three decades. And to see that this year, the authorities on St. Kitts would not only give permission for, but were inviting people and promoting a J’Ouvert in St. Kitts at the very same time that we have a J’Ouvert in Nevis is quite frankly very sad. Because at the end of the day, it becomes very divisive.
“But we are very happy that the calls to boycott Nevis J’Ouvert failed and that people came over in their numbers. Nevisians came out in their numbers and we had good clean fun. And at the end of the day, they had a wonderful time. So, the reality is, at the end of the day they actually galvanised support for Culturama…”
Brantley indicated that in many respects Culturama 39 saw greater success than it had last year and even the previous one.
“I am very happy to report that it was incident-free. For the very first time in a long time, we had no incidents at all for the festival. And I want to thank the police and the security forces. Generally, I want to thank all those who were involved with our circuit-television coverage of the venues and the entire Charlestown, because I believe that had a lot to do with the fact that we ended up with an incident-free Culturama. So we are very, very happy for that.
“In terms of gate receipts, we saw a significant increase over last year in terms of what we were able to do and over 2011 as well. All the shows did better except for one show…and so we are very pleased that we were able to meet some of our financial targets.The shows were very well attended! Certainly, the gate receipts are an indication of the attendance and so I am pleased with the turnout.”
The Culturama Minister also thanked the Small Axe and the Grand Masters Bands for their usual support of the J’Ouvert event.
“I believe that all of us had a fantastic Culturama...Parade, Last Lap, Food Fair. All of these events went spectacularly well, so I’m very, very happy and I can report that the majority opinion seems to be that we had a very, very successful Culturama 39 and now we have an excellent spring to launch Culturama 40.”
