BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

Stake­hold­ers in the cre­ative sec­tor are hap­py about the re­open­ing of per­for­mance spaces but won­der whether it will be worth their time or even prac­ti­cal to or­gan­ise shows giv­en so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols and lim­its on crowd size.

Per­form­ing spaces will be­gin re­open­ing from to­day with Queen’s Hall in Port-of-Spain. The South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) and Na­pari­ma Bowl will re­open on Ju­ly 6, while the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) will open its doors on Au­gust 3.

Pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Broth­er Re­sis­tance (Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba) said it would be dif­fi­cult to or­gan­ise any en­ter­tain­ment in these spaces with gath­er­ings lim­it­ed to 25 peo­ple.

“That is the per­form­ers and the band right there,” he said.

Not­ing that there is no force to fit the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, he added: “There is no curb­side’ pick up for the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try. We are still await­ing some dis­cus­sion con­cern­ing the pe­cu­liar na­ture of the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor.

Masim­ba said al­though calls have been made for Gov­ern­ment, to ap­point an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al team to fo­cus specif­i­cal­ly on the en­ter­tain­ment and cre­ative sec­tors in this COVID-19 era, no re­sponse has been forth­com­ing.

“We still await­ing a dis­cus­sion with the re­cov­ery team, or who­ev­er it may be, in terms of map­ping a pos­i­tive and prac­ti­cal way for­ward,” he said.

“Of all the sec­tors, the cre­ative sec­tor has been re­duced to ground ze­ro and there con­tin­ues to be no mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion where it is con­cerned and that is dis­tress­ing be­cause we do con­tribute to the GDP of this na­tion,.”

Ac­tress and di­rec­tor Pene­lope Spencer said with the lim­it­ed amount of peo­ple al­lowed in a the­atre, she does not know if pro­duc­ers would get their just de­serves or if it would be worth their time.

Spencer and fel­low ac­tress Ce­cil­ia Salazar are con­tin­u­ing the vir­tu­al the­atre they launched on June 5— PC Com­e­dy—free live the­atri­cal plays pre­sent­ed on Face­book via the OMG Dig­i­tal Mag­a­zine plat­form.

Film­mak­er Danielle Di­ef­fen­thaller be­lieves it is a big risk to stage a show at half ca­pac­i­ty.

“Maybe open-air venues with a two-han­der with low over­heads might work. Oth­er­wise, we have to adapt the way the­atre is con­sumed un­til we have a prop­er han­dle on the sit­u­a­tion,” she sug­gest­ed.

Singer and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor John Michael Thomas post­ed on his Face­book page yes­ter­day: “Choral tra­di­tion has been a ma­jor part of my life. Singing in choirs from sev­en-years-old to di­rect­ing choirs from as ear­ly as 16-years-old. To now live in a world where just the idea of this not be­ing pos­si­ble for a while—maybe two years is sim­ply un­fath­omable to me.

“Mak­ing mu­sic to­geth­er, mu­sic that lit­er­al­ly comes from with­in you, in the very same space, learn­ing to­geth­er, grow­ing to­geth­er, to me, no oth­er ex­pe­ri­ence can com­pare!”

Thomas, founder of the East­ern Youth Chorale (EYC), not­ing his col­leagues’ sen­ti­ments on the re­open­ing of per­form­ing spaces, said: “It is worth a try. The on­ly way to know is to try. We have to. We are dy­ing in­side…mon­ey is not every­thing im­por­tant.

“Hon­est­ly, most of us, if not all, do not do it for that, it al­ready isn’t prac­ti­cal. To put a qual­i­ty prod­uct out there much has to be spent.”