From left, Odeno Whyte, Anika Hill, Kim Pommell and Kirk Rowe, some of the members of the Ashe group, during a practice session. -Carlington Wilmot photoMichael Reckord, Freelance Writer
HIS CHILDHOOD friends still hang out on the street corners of Jones Town. Drinking beer and smoking weed, they while the hours away. Nothing else to do. No ambitious plans for the future.
He might still be there with them, but for the performing arts.
Kirk Rowe, 21, dancer, choreographer, singer and actor, knows he's one of the lucky ones. He started his dance off the streets around Slipe Pen Road (near Cross Roads) when he was about eight and auditioned for the Cathi Levy Little People theatre group. Some of his schoolmates at John Mills All Age also tried out. He got in.
"It was my energy that got me in," he explained one recent afternoon.
That pivotal moment in time has carried him from street corners to dance and theatre stages around the world.
For Rowe, and countless young Jamaicans, the performing arts have been a great developer of minds, personalities, talents and bodies.
Rowe, who went from Cathi Levi to the Ashe Dance Ensemble, and to being on his own, notes that if it weren't for dance he "would probably be out on the streets."
Dance has also opened a whole new world for 14-year-old Anika Hill. The once shy and withdrawn girl with "low self-esteem" has blossomed as a member of Ashe. "She has overcome her shyness. She has travelled to the USA many times and went to France last year to take part in a festival," says her aunt Maxine Johnson, a security officer at Ashe. It took Johnson, a resident of Nannyville (off Mountain View Avenue), where Ashe is located, and Anika's mother to persuade the girl to join the group when she was eight.
Plus, adds Johnson, the experience has helped Anika, a student at Excelsior High School, academically. "She wasn't always bright, but her school work has improved."
Kim Pommel, 18, another resident of Nannyville says performing has changed her "don't care"
attitude to life and gave her enough discipline to graduate from fifth form (in June). Now she wants to "sing, dance and act full time," she adds, singing the praises of Ashe.
Over in Waterhouse, another of Kingston's troubled inner-city communities, Odeno Whyte dreams of Broadway. The 19-year-old says he might be running with a gun and smoking weed, were he not performing. Instead, he acts, dances and plays the drums as one of the main performers in the Ashe Ensemble.
"The performing arts have helped me to see myself having a career in the movies or on Broadway."
Richard Forester, a member of the Kingston College (KC) drama group which dominated this year's Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) speech competition, explains in a Sunday Gleaner story what theatre has done for him: "It gives you more time on the stage and less time on the street corner."
The boys also note that no one who joined the group in first form has ever failed to graduate. KC students need at least 5 CXCs to graduate.
In Mandeville, members of the 13-year-old Ayaedeh Theatre Players have similar stories. Vivien Morris-Brown, co-founder/director, says 16 members of the group performed in Anguilla and St Martin in 1994. Performances and workshops
in England and Wales followed.
The children in the group come from various schools but they are "always the outstanding ones in their schools -- the head boys, and head girls, the ones who get scholarships, the ones cited for good achievement," she adds. Plus, shy children gain confidence in Ayaedeh and generally become more rounded. Even children with speech impediments show improvement, she says.
Kirk Rowe who went on to Wolmer's Boys' School after leaving John Mills, says while he toured constantly throughout his teen years, he made it to fifth form with the help of older members of Ashe who assisted him with his school work.
He remembers being coached in hotel rooms and on long bus rides between gigs. "I'm immensely grateful," he says, to Cathi Levy and his friends in Ashe.
Kirk describes Ashe co-founder Joseph Robinson as his mentor. "Joe taught me to believe in myself."
Of Ashe's objectives, Robinson says: "We develop the 'Ashe' in members -- the strength, the power, the God within, helping them to be their best. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform all people to live a life of integrity and prosperity, a life that is purposeful, meaningful and free."
Kirk, notes Robinson, is a "great example" of what Ashe is all about."
Cathi Levy, a pioneer in the formation of theatre groups for children and teens, often speak of the improvement shown in the lives of youngsters who join her group. Rowe is only one of scores of young people who have been turned on to performing by Levy.
Members of perhaps the largest of the youth theatre groups, the 18-year-old Jamaica Junior theatre, learn more than self-development. They also learn to give. Proceeds from the group's annual shows, which have had up to 60-strong casts, go to charity. They have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for organisations such as SOS Children's Village, the Children's Hospital, the Jamaica Foundation for Cardiac Disease and the Jamaica Addiction Alert Organisation.
Meanwhile, Rowe who has been honing his skills as a performer and producer, on July 18 produced a full-length dance concert comprising some of his dances at the Little Theatre in Kingston. This makes him, in all likelihood, the youngest producer ever to mount a show at the theatre.
A bundle of energy on stage, Rowe is on the road again -- Toronto, Canada, where he is forming a company called the Caribbean Folk Performers. Last year he was a guest dancer with Ballet Creole, a contemporary dance group headed by Patrick Parsons in Canada's largest city. He was such a hit that he was asked back for another season this year January.
These are but a few of the numerous dance, drama, and music groups across the island. Others like the MulitCare Foundation in Kingston, the Port Antonio, Falmouth, Manchioneal and other theatre groups instil
discipline and provide a positive and creative outlet for many children and young people.
The breadth of talent was evident in the just-
concluded JCDC performing arts competitions.
