Ellis
Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter
THE ARTS walk the precarious rope between culture and entertainment. While this position allows it to claim its place as an invaluable part of society, it also clothes it with the ignoble fate of being labelled a mere pastime.
Encompassing the fine arts, dance, drama, and music, the arts are the clearest guideposts to a nation's culture. While culture extends to everything about how a society lives, the arts serve as a reflecting pool for this. Along with their role as a preserver of culture, the arts also have great psychological value. Many psychologists, guidance counsellors and teachers have pointed out that students involved with the arts have better cognitive skills.
Even so, and though everyone may at sometime or other seek it, it is hard to think of 'leisure' as serious business.
However, that is exactly what they are, serious business. "Globally, cultural industries are seen as the way forward," says Sidney Bartley, director of culture in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture. He went on to point out that cultural industries are of particular importance to developing countries.
Indeed, the most obvious way in which the arts helps to boost an economy is through the recording and film industries. While Jamaica's film industry is merely fledgling, the international impact of Jamaica's music has been significant especially in its popular forms, from ska and rocksteady through to
reggae and dancehall.
EASILY MARRIED
Cultural industries can also be easily married with tourism, and has been known to greatly boost the industry in destinations which integrate the two well. Though in the past, the allure of sand and sea was the one sung loudest in Jamaican tourist advertising, the beat of reggae has been dubbing its way into prominence in the message.
However, culturally, Jamaica has far more than reggae to offer either foreigners or locals. Each year the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission stage visual and performing arts competitions which showcase an amazing breadth of talent.
Additionally, numerous performing arts groups, professional and amateur, continue to display the Jamaican psyche, whether through dance, drama or song. Interestingly, though Jamaica appears to be bursting at the seams with talent, we have no real festival of the performing arts.
There is a yam festival, a seafood festival, a jerk festival, a bussu festival, a breadfruit festival and so many more but there is no performing arts festival.
The closest approximation to this is the annual Calabash International Literary Festival, which takes place in May in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth. In its first two years of existence (it is now approaching its fourth) Calabash involved dramatic productions.
The JCDC's annual festival of the performing arts bears the name but does not adequately live up to the description. Additionally, though it is open to persons of all ages, and still attracts numerous adult folk groups, the festivals have more become the property of students.
Over recent years, the JCDC competition has been moving closer to that with the introduction of the fest nights highlighting the best performances of each performing art.
In recognition of a need to improve the state of the arts in Jamaica, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture drafted a national cultural policy in 2002, titled 'Toward Jamaica the Cultural Superstate'.
The policy speaks to the need for adding greater value and support to the arts and details how they should be supported. In this paragraph the intrinsic value of the arts are explained: "Since the arts are a key element of a people's culture, cultural policy must include a policy for protecting, fostering and promoting the arts in the community. This is a fairly complex process since on one hand, communities benefit from contact with other cultures, receiving a kind of cultural stimulation and fertilisation from this exposure and openness. On the other hand however, cultures in communities require special consideration and imposition or dominance of other cultures, especially those of more technologically advanced societies."
In December, students and teachers of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts gathered to discuss the how to increase the importance of the arts in society in a forum with the theme 'Valuing the Arts'. The forum was a class project but provided insight into the student's perceived arts place in the society, and what they would like to see changed.
The students seemed to hold the media as one of the major culprits in the lack of value placed on the arts. It was argued that the media focuses on "surface level" art. Owen Jackson, one of the presenters, argued that the media continually uses the word 'school' in reference to Edna Manley, rather than college. "It is a tertiary institution," he said, "and must be regarded as such." Jackson was not alone in this argument.
Owen Ellis, theatre practitioner and teacher at the Edna Manley, explained that the students are particularly aggrieved by the idea that the college is not fully respected as a tertiary institution. Ellis argues, however, that as the sole tertiary institution dedicated to the visual and performing arts in the island it should be perceived as the mecca of our culture, it is not. Ellis says that he lays the blame for this at the feet of the school's administration. He argues that during the 1970s the school was constantly abuzz with varying artistic endeavours.
Pointing out that the college is what created Jean Binta Breeze, Mikey Smith and Poets In Unity, Ellis says that the amphitheatre used to feature performances by Third World, Sistren and several others. "Things were fermenting there. Things were happening," he said.
Ellis is willing to admit that the problem extends beyond the school's administration. He notes that the students themselves are in part to blame, as there is less experimentation in their work. He also argued that the greater commercialisation of today's society has also had an impact, because people are only interested in projects which can make money.
GREAT HURDLE
Students of the arts also have another great hurdle to overcome. One of the greatest challenges a student has to face, is financing their education. While many students depend on student loans and/or the generosity and foresight of their parents, scholarships are one of the ways in which many can afford tertiary level education.
The Scholarships and Assistance Unit in the Cabinet Office prepares a brochure of scholarships and fellowships for graduate and undergraduate study. Of the offers which specified subject areas, only the scholarship offered by the Government of China for postgraduate study in China specifies fine arts as one of the areas of study.
Bartley admits to this shortcoming for the development of Jamaica's artists. "The one area of concern that I have, that we don't deal with and that the Jamaica Business Development Centre (JBDC) doesn't deal with is the area of scholarship." In an attempt to address to this issue, he says that the ministry is attempting to initiate discussions with international agencies. Bartley gave the initiated attempt to create short term residencies through the British Council.
Some of the students however, have attempted to raise their own scholarship through their art, as none were forthcoming from elsewhere. In 2002, dancer Neila Ebanks produced the concert 'I'll Send You A Postcard' to raise her tuition to attend college in the United Kingdom. A year later another dancer, Marlon Simms, staged 'In Tuition'. This time, his aim was to repay his student loan before he too went on to pursue postgraduate study.
Kirk Rowe, who has been staging an annual concert, 'Daring To Dream', and also teaches at Edna Manley, argues that artists are in great need for financial and marketing help, but get very little. He criticised the Ministry's Division of Culture for being unable to help young artistes when they are attempting to stage productions.
However, Bartley argues that business assistance is not in the division's portfolio. He notes that that is a function of the JBDC. Bartley argues that the students at Edna Manley College are greatly hampered by ignorance about where to go to get help with the varying facets of projects they may wish to undertake.
"One of the things that I'm trying to do with Edna Manley is trying to let them (the students) understand where to go." Bartley said. "You need to know as a part of your education, as a part of your institution what are the cultural agencies." He noted that the JCDC and the Institute of Jamaica (IoJ) are also there to help artists. However, with Jamaica's economy currently in its asthmatic state, it is questionable whether a cultural superstate can be created, or whether that will simply be another bit of political yarn to be aired at the launch of every artistic event.
Bartley, however is quite confident that with international support, it can happen. He noted that as organisations such as UNESCO are now dedicated to improving the cultural industries of developing countries, there is potential for success. "I think that in spite of the situation, if we do the things correctly, there are opportunities."
Of course the fates of many young Jamaicans who dare to dream rest on our doing it correctly. Little by little, 'coco by coco', Jamaica's culture, the art forms are being rescued from being viewed as mere pastime.
As we laugh at the next comedy, or gasp in awe or flinch from the truth depicted in an art exhibition, we help to establish that the arts are not merely big business, they are our business.
