Carolyn Johnson, Freelance Writer

'Speechfest', the fourth night in the Best of Festival series was, as some literature students would describe it, deep. Hosted by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC), the concert series had the 'hold you belly and laugh' segments, but was also thought-provoking on many levels as the pieces explored the country's political system, the 'sufferation' and violence.

The Best of Festival concert series, which started in 2001 to promote some of the medal-winning performances in the National Performance Arts Finals in dance, speech, drama, music and the traditional folk forms, was this year held at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, Hope Road.

Show-stoppers

Emceed by Paula-Ann Porter, the festival saw talents from across the island in varying age ranges. Each piece testified to its deserving the gold medal. But while the expression, the costume and the talents were fabulous, there were a few show-stoppers. The first was Jameelia Smith of St. Aloysius Primary with Teacha Stress. The poem bemoaned the struggles of a teacher on the first September morning, where "instead of a class of 20, 50 pickney stan up".

"Me mada say yu lucky; she nuh have nuh money an a yu fi gi me lunch," one child in the class shouted. The piece showed the stress a teacher has to endure, the indiscipline and trials that come with being a teacher in a Jamaican classroom. She was little but 'tallawah', full of attitude and received a standing ovation after her piece.

A five-year-old's plight

Another 'little miss' was Jahzan McLaughlin with Lament of a Five-Year-Old. She, indeed, did not seem older than five with her hair in two ponytails, and wearing a pink top, jeans short and a pink knapsack. Her plight was that, being a five-year-old was too much so she was running away to where her mother could not find her, the backyard.

Also representing was the Rousseau Primary School that performed a total of four pieces, including Departure Lounge - a cynical view of the bureaucracy surrounding the late Louise Bennett-Coverley's funeral.

But the big kids did well too. Ardenne High School's Boys Ensemble Political War was a powerful dub poetry on the state of violence and politics in the country. The young men were not only commanding with fierce expressions, but had creative choreography as their pain flowed from the stage to the packed venue.

Up the ladder were Dane Campbell and André Morris from the University of Technology. Their pieces were funny, as well as serious and thought provoking, as Campbell spoke to the youth in Death Row, while Morris' excerpt from Sarafina (in Jamaican dialect), mirrored similar injustices in Jamaican society.

The performer for the evening, however, had to be Samantha Hardy from the Port Antonio Theatre Group. In fact, one of her three pieces, Maya Angelou's Still I Rise, received the Best Speech performance for 2007. Hardy was indeed everything embodied in the poem, a strong, confident, proud, graceful, yet fierce black woman, the character she seems to become every time she walks on to the stage.