Mentoring by the Masters- Call for Applications

“We are all students of life, and our learning never ends.” -Dr. the Honourable Nyan Gadsby-Dolly

As the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts invites applications for the 2018 edition of the Mentoring by the Masters Programme, Dr. the Honourable Nyan Gadsby-Dolly calls on students, apprentices or beginners in the creative industry to expand their artistic horizons by learning from the veterans in the sector.

The Mentoring by the Masters Programme facilitates knowledge transfer of our cultural traditions and high standards of creativity by masters in the field to the future generation. This year’s edition will provide mentees with the valuable opportunity to undergo an intense two and a half month-long training programme with leaders across various disciplines in the cultural sphere. This year’s edition will feature the following Mentors with their respective offerings:

Wendell Manwarren – Let’s Make a Show

Eintou Pearl Springer – The Art & Practice of the Story

Meiling – Discovering the Fashion Industry

Felix Edinborough – The Pierrot Grenade In and Out of Carnival

Dr. Suzanne Burke – The Enterprise of the Arts

The public is invited to harness the full benefits of this programme. The application period runs until April 26th 2018, and forms are available on the Ministry’s website http://www.cdca.gov.tt/mentoring-by-the-masters/

The Mentoring by the Masters Programme is in its sixth edition this year. Since its inception in 2012, approximately 425 participants have been mentored by some of our nation’s cultural icons in areas such as Classical Indian Dance, Music and musical band dynamics, Screen writing and film making techniques, Costume making for Ramleela, Developmental Theatre, Storytelling and Oratory Skills, Music Accompaniment, Literary Arts and Song Writing, Copper Arts, Carnival Arts, Festival Development for Ramleela, Heritage Architecture Preservation and Professional Development for Artists.

Last year’s programme included yet another stellar line up of Mentors who willingly accepted the Ministry’s call to serve. These were Mr. Lionel Jagessar Snr who facilitated a programme on Fancy Indian Mas, Ms. Rosalind Gabriel for a Children’s Mas component, Ms. Janice Patricia McLeod for Ifa/Orisa Traditions, Ms. Sharon Pitt who facilitated the Professional Development in Broadcasting programme, and Mr. Simeon Sandiford for developing a programme on the Aspects of Music Production & the Business of Music.

Past mentors of the programme have also included Earl Lovelace, Dr. Rajkumar Krishna Persad, Marina Salandy-Brown, Paul Keens Douglas, Joseph Valley, Lindyann Bodden Ritch, Renee Cummings Ravindra Nath Maharaj, Rudylynn DeFour Roberts, the late Stephen Derek and Narcenio ‘Senor’ Gomez.

Profiles of the 2018 Mentors

 

 

Wendell Roger Manwarren

Wendell Roger Manwarren is a singer, writer, producer, teacher, sound designer and director. Having been involved in the theatre and the performing arts for the past 30 years, Mr. Manwarren has had the opportunity to work with and learn from the very best Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean has to offer.

Having cut his teeth, so to speak, as a member of the now defunct Trinidad Tent Theatre under the direction of Helen Camps, Mr. Manwarren has since gone on to work closely with such luminaries as Peter Minshall and the Callaloo Company, Derek Walcott and the Trinidad Theatre Workshop and Noble Douglas and the Lilliput Theatre to name a few.

As a founding member, performer and producer with the cutting edge Rapso crew 3canal, Mr. Manwarren continues to challenge his growth and development as a contemporary artist in the world today. As a tutor and director at Lilliput Theatre, every year for the past twenty five years, Manwarren has had the challenge of making a show from scratch, and as Artistic Director of 3canal, he has been similarly tasked for the past 14 years with doing the same. His theatrical productions have won awards both locally and internationally.

Dr. Suzanne Burke

 

Dr. Suzanne Burke is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies attached to the Department of Literary, Communication and Cultural Studies, UWI, St. Augustine.

She was formally trained in the areas of Psychology (B.A. – York University, Canada), Development Studies (M.A. Cum Laude – ISS, Netherlands), and Sociology (PhD – Essex University, UK).

Her research focuses on Caribbean culture, carnival, cultural industries and creative entrepreneurship as these relate to the development and evaluation of cultural policies and programmes.

She has worked extensively with a wide cross section of public sector enterprises, civil society organisations and private agencies in the areas of strategic planning, policy analysis, cultural industry development and audience research within and outside of the Caribbean.

In 2014 she conducted the first Cultural Mapping Exercise of Trinidad and Tobago for the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism that is currently being used to develop programming and policy in the sector. She has also worked with a variety of state actors to formulate policies aimed at growing the creative industry sector. She has studied and written various reports on the governance, and socio-economic impact of the Trinidad Carnival Complex for at least twenty years.

Her latest research examines the efficacy of creative clustering as a strategy for developing the creative economy and fostering innovation within communities of practice in the cultural sector. This research was the focus of her award of a Commonwealth Fellowship that was completed at City University, London in 2016. This year she was part of the Technical Working Group that assisted in the formulation of the Draft National Cultural Policy of Trinidad and Tobago – Creating Pathways to Cultural Confidence.

She has supervised students at the MA, MPhil and PhD levels in a variety of research areas including festivals, creative entrepreneurship, popular culture, gender performativity in carnival and nostalgia and memory in the popular cultural domain.

 

Eintou Pearl Springer

 

Eintou Pearl Springer is an internationally recognised poet, playwright, award winning actress and traditional storyteller. As a librarian, she conceptualised and developed the National Heritage Library of Trinidad and Tobago (NALIS) and retired as its first director. She is an Associate of the Library Association of Great Britain (1970) and holds an M. Phil from City Univ. London (1986).

She is the recipient of a National Award, the Humming Bird Silver, for her contribution to the Development of Art and Culture, and a Vanguard Cacique Award from the National Drama Association of Trinidad and Tobago for her contribution to the development of theatre. She pioneered the development of the Junior Best Village Programme.

Through her cultural family company IDAKEDA and NGO the Indigenous Creative Arts Network (ICAN), she has created initiatives for vulnerable populations using a combination of literature, history and theatre to empower youth in challenged communities. These initiatives have been successfully tested at home, throughout the Caribbean and in communities in the UK and the USA, and recently in Haiti.

Eintou recently retired as Cultural Director of the Emancipation Support Committee, a post she has held since the inception of the organisation. She speaks regularly at international fora on a wide range of issues of concern to the diaspora. She is the first citizen of Trinidad and Tobago to perform at the Edinburgh Festival. She held the post of Poet Laureate of Port of Spain from 2000 to 2009. She has published four volumes of adult poetry, two volumes of poetry and stories for children, a book on African Heritage Sites in Trinidad and Tobago, a Social Studies text on the Caribbean and Survivor (currently a recommended reading for Theatre Arts students) a collection of thirteen (13) plays for children and young adults (2017). Her academic papers and poetry have been widely anthologised.

 

Meiling

 

Very few people in the Caribbean are automatically known by their first name and Meiling (Esau) is the tour de force behind the premier fashion house, not only in Trinidad but throughout the Caribbean and South America. Since 1983, Meiling has worked closely with Emmy Award-winning costume designer, Peter Minshall on his Carnival productions and other artistic presentations. This collaboration has won her accolades, notably for her involvement in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Meiling is also known for her work with and support of local musical talents, including calypsonians David Rudder, and acclaimed Rapso artists, 3 Canal, with whom she has an extended working relationship.

Meiling is also a recipient of several Cacique Awards, her latest in 2012 was for costume design. She was the first recipient of ‘Caribbean Designer of the Year’ at Caribbean Fashion Week (CFW) and in 2008 she received another award from CFW, this time, ‘Grand Master of Fashion Design’. In November 2007, Robert & Christopher Publishers launched Meiling: Fashion Designer, the second book in a series on local, female artists.

In September of 2008 she was presented with the Chaconia Silver Medal for long and meritorious service to Trinidad and Tobago’s business sector. She has gone on to win many awards and accolades for her work both locally and internationally and has represented Trinidad and Tobago on several occasions internationally, the most recent being at the first Commonwealth Exchange at Buckingham Palace.

These awards and recognition are the fruits of over forty years of hard work, tenacity, creativity and always keeping true to her mantra of not compromising on quality, design or workmanship.

 

Felix Edinborough

Felix Edinburgh has committed himself to delivering the best pierrot grenade there could ever be in the Caribbean region for the past 31 years. He has travelled to several countries in Europe and North America, representing Trinidad & Tobago at cultural festivals and educating people on the history of this Carnival character.

It was while performing at the Little Carib Theatre that Edinborough became acquainted with comedian Paul Keens Douglas. Douglas invited him to be a part of his talk tent in 1983. Edinborough accepted and soon joined John Agitation, “Puggy” (mid-night robber) and other stand-up comedians. “I stayed with the talk tent and before I knew it, I was the permanent pierrot grenade.” Realising the character would be his role in Carnival, Edinborough continued his research on the pierrot grenade, reading books written by Andrew Carr, Errol Hill and others.

The retired teacher has taken the character of the pierrot grenade to primary and secondary schools, as well as for foreign university students who visit Trinidad and Tobago. He is highly sought after to perform at private and public Carnival functions, and has even been part of functions hosted by former Prime Minister Patrick Manning at his residence. He records his pierrot grenade portrayal in Germany at the 2006 Fifa World Cup as one of his most memorable. Declaring that his work in researching the character is never done, Edinborough said he would fall back when he was satisfied that someone else could execute the role of the pierrot grenade better than he ever did.

 

PHOTOS:

 

Caption: Dr. the Honourable Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Minister of Community Development Culture and the Arts (Centre) with mentors at an Awards Ceremony held at the end of the 2017 Mentoring by the Masters Programme. From left: Mr. Simeon Sandiford, Ms. Sharon Pitt, Ms. Rosalind Gabriel, Minister Gadsby-Dolly, Mr. Tej Ramlogan- Director of Culture, Ms. Janice Patricia McLeod, and Mr. Lionnel Jagessar Snr.

Caption: 2017 Mentor Ms. Janice Patricia McLeod (right) with Mentees during a session on Ifa/Orisa Traditions

Caption: Highlights from 2016’s Mentoring by the Masters Programme with Mentor Ravindra Nath Maharaj (Raviji) and the cast the Hindu Prachaar Kendra’s Baal Ramdilla. Raviji’s course in 2016 focused on Costume Making for Ramleela.

 

-END-

For media inquiries, please contact:

The Communications Unit

Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts

Nicholas Tower

624-5004 Ext. 5145 / 5148

communications_cdca@gov.tt