SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Sto­ry­tellers Paul Keens-Dou­glas and Aun­tie Thea will be ho­n­oured at the spe­cial cul­mi­na­tion of the two-month Sea­son of Anan­si Folk­lore Fes­ti­val on Thurs­day.

A Trib­ute to the Sto­ry­tellers at the Lit­tle Carib The­atre in Wood­brook be­gins at 6 pm, with cock­tails fol­lowed by the cer­e­mo­ny at 7 pm. An af­ter-par­ty will take place at Big Black Box The­atre on Mur­ray Street from 9 pm-1 am.

Fes­ti­val founder Rubadiri Vic­tor said T&T con­tin­ues to pro­duce phe­nom­e­nal sto­ry­tellers and some­times their gifts are tak­en for grant­ed. He be­lieves it’s time for max­i­mum trib­ute to be paid to the el­der ge­nius­es and pi­o­neers.

Keens-Dou­glas, Aun­ty Thea, Roger Alex­is and Ro’Dey (Rodell Cum­ber­batch) will be ho­n­oured at the event.

Keens-Dou­glas is one of the most im­por­tant artistes the Caribbean has pro­duced. At a time in the late 1970s and ear­ly 80s he was every­where – on ra­dio, al­bums, tapes, in videos, books, on­stage at the same Lit­tle Carib The­atre, and was in mul­ti­me­dia be­fore there was mul­ti­me­dia. He is a pi­o­neer in the de­vel­op­ment of the oral tra­di­tions and the use of the ver­nac­u­lar as a lit­er­ary form.

To his cred­it, he has nine books, 15 al­bums, three videos, 16 CDs and two DVDs. His works have a wide ap­peal, via char­ac­ters such as Tan­ti Mer­le, Vib­ert, Slim, and Tall-Boy. His sto­ries, pub­lished in Eng­lish, French, Ger­man and Japan­ese, have been fea­tured in many well-known in­ter­na­tion­al pub­li­ca­tions.

Aun­tie Thea (Theodo­ra Ulerie) has kept West African and Caribbean sto­ry­telling tra­di­tions alive for decades, re­claim­ing dozens of an­ces­tral folk­tales for con­tem­po­rary per­for­mance.

Al­so known as So­journ­er Cul­ture, the Mys­tic Sto­ry­teller, and now Sto­ry­teller 868, Aun­tie Thea is the co­or­di­na­tor of Baku Pro­duc­tions and founder and cre­ative di­rec­tor of Cul­ture House, a fa­cil­i­ty for de­vel­op­ing cul­tur­al aware­ness among young peo­ple.

School tours, cor­po­rate re­treats and four years of per­for­mances in tra­di­tion­al an­ces­tral sto­ry­telling in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, are in­clud­ed in her port­fo­lio.

Among the pro­lif­ic on­line sto­ry­tellers T&T has pro­duced, Alex­is and his ir­rev­er­ent pup­pet San­tana and Ro’Dey, who cre­at­ed a tem­plate for oth­ers to fol­low, sit among the hand­ful with bril­liant­ly craft­ed skits that have won large lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al fol­low­ings.

These sto­ry­tellers con­tin­ue the work of pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions, re­flect­ing con­tem­po­rary re­al­i­ties to au­di­ences, and keep­ing the trick­ster spir­it of Anan­si alive.