By Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter
Calabar Primary and Junior High create and move to the beat. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
THE PHILLIP Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts was filled with the voices of children on Thursday afternoon. The occasion was the annual MultiCare Foundation annual christmas lunch hour concert.
Six schools from Kingston and one from Portmore participated in the concert, presenting an afternoon of speech, dance, and drumming.
Calabar Primary and Junior High, which also had the most entries on the programme, claimed the spotlight with their finishing act. The students treated the audience to a rousing round of drumming. The boys and their teacher, Oneil Peart, thrilled the audience with their performance, receiving rousing applause at the end.
The group did not limit their performance to just drumming. There was also dancing, with the performers moving from simple gyrations and contortions to basic break dancing.
Additionally, the drummers varied their rhythms. While they started with folk beats such as brukkins, they changed to more modern sounds with an interpretation of the Neptunes', Burning. They ended with the rhythm to the ring game Mosquito One.
Calabar Primary and Junior High also performed four speech items. Their funniest piece was Avenia Powell's Junkunnu Come A School. The poem gives details of a young boy's attempt to elude a Jonkunnu band which visited his school. His attempts at escape leaves him with torn clothing and a very telling stain on his pants, from when he lost control of his bladder... twice. The poem was one of the pieces which brought some Christmas flavour to the concert.
The feeling that it is Christmas was also brought by the dance performed by St. Jude's Primary. The dance told the tale of the birth of Christ.
However, Tarrant Primary dominated the dances. Although they performed only two dances, both went over very well and highlighted good choreography and talent in the dancers, some of whom were as young as six years. The first dance was a folk piece which included Brukkins and dinki mini. The second dance was done to Dancehall Queen and found the young audience cheering the dancers along.
Other dances were performed by students from Harbour View Primary, Haile Selassie High, Ascot High, Franklin Town Primary and Donald Quarrie High. These dances included folk contemporary and even a salsa.
All the students who performed are involved in the Performing Arts Programme which is operated by MultiCare-assisted schools. The MultiCare Foundation, a non-profit organisation, has been in operation since 1993. MultiCare aims to promote growth and development by stimulating through the arts and sports. Funded by Cable and Wireless Jamaica Limited, Caribbean Cement Company and ICD Group Limited, the foundation also engages in therapy programmes. Banners used as a backdrop for the Christmas concert were created by the clients from this programme at the Bellevue Hospital and The Jamaica Council for Persons With Disabilities.
