Yvonne Webb

The San Fer­nan­do Arts Coun­cil has passed a unan­i­mous res­o­lu­tion ask­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­think plans to use the Na­pari­ma Bowl as part of the pro­posed Na­pari­ma Med­ical Acad­e­my.The de­ci­sion by the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion to change the Bowl from a cul­tur­al cen­tre to an ex­ten­sion of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal has caused a furore among south­ern­ers and mem­bers of the arts fra­ter­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.Per­sad-Bisses­sar sug­gest­ed that the soon-to-be-opened South Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts would pro­vide al­ter­na­tive space for the arts.

The res­o­lu­tion fol­lowed a re­cent meet­ing of cul­tur­al ac­tivists and oth­er stake­hold­ers at the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do, last Thurs­day.Mem­bers of the Arts Coun­cil had pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten to Reynold Coop­er, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, ex­press­ing their deep con­cern about the de­ci­sion to con­vert the Bowl. The group al­so asked to meet with Per­sad-Bisses­sar.The let­ter was signed by James Lee Wah but up to the time of the meet­ing, there was no re­sponse from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was in Aus­tralia for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM).At the meet­ing, San Fer­nan­do West MP and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan lent her sup­port to the cul­tur­al lob­by. She told the meet­ing, which in­clud­ed for­mer MP Di­ane Seuk­er­an, Cyn­tra Lucky, Vic­tor Ed­wards, Joy Ceasar, Joyce Kir­ton, Tor­rance Mo­hammed, Walid Baksh and oth­er cul­tur­al ac­tivists, she was San Fer­nan­di­an and would like to see the Bowl used for what it was orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed."That Bowl is very dear to me, as well, and I will sup­port you 100 per cent in what­ev­er we need to do to make it in­to a her­itage site for San Fer­nan­do," Seep­er­sad-Bachan said.

How­ev­er, she point­ed out that how the Bowl would be ul­ti­mate­ly used would rest with Cab­i­net, the Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters and the board of di­rec­tors of the Bowl, which is head­ed by San­dra Al­lum.Her state­ments caused some up­set but Seuk­er­an called on the au­di­ence not to put the MP on the spot but to give her the sup­port to make a very loud lob­by.Lee Wah, in call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment "to leave the Bowl alone," not­ed the venue was booked sol­id up un­til De­cem­ber 2012.He sug­gest­ed that the med­ical com­plex would be bet­ter served, "if they take over NA­PA (South) in­stead of the Bowl."

An In­ter­net pe­ti­tion has al­so been start­ed by Leslynne Matthews who wrote: "The Na­pari­ma Bowl has been and con­tin­ues to be the train­ing ground for most south­ern the­atre prac­ti­tion­ers (my­self in­clud­ed) and is the on­ly true for­mal medi­um-sized ded­i­cat­ed the­atre space in the South that is ful­ly equipped and fi­nan­cial­ly ac­ces­si­ble to all per­form­ers and groups."