BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 20th December 2019)- Children and other young people who are involved and interested in keeping the folklore cultural heritage alive in the Federation of St.Kitts and Nevis are being showered with praise by two top cultural icons in the Federation.
On a visit to Fort Street in the heart of Basseterre on Wednesday this week (18th December 2019) for a showing of Folklore Avenue as part of Sugar Mas 48 calendar, this media house spoke with Well-known music icon Michael ‘Mic Stokes’ Heyliger and Cultural Preservationist Winston ‘Zack’ Nisbett.
Performances included the St. Peter’s Actors, Valon’s Masquerade Troupe and bull troupes.
Heyliger expressed: “It is good to see the young generation keeping up the tradition. I’m surprised really because I didn’t expect this because I thought it was going down the drain but now it’s appearing in front of me I see they have more bulls; they have three to four bulls in one troupe they are. I remember one time back there were nine bulls that came down from Nevis, and those bulls really turned up Basseterre. It’s good to see that we still have it continuing and we should invite those from Nevis too.
Asked what advice he has for the youngsters, he told: “Just try your best in being positive in every way you could and whatever you love doing…if you want to play bull, play masquerade or you want to be a drummer go ahead, and also there needs to be more fifers so go ahead and pursue that; hit the ‘green light’..”
According to Nisbett: “It is an important aspect of our cultural heritage.”
He shared that the junior performers had an appearance last week of which he had was part of as it involved “most of the schools.”
Troupes such as may pole, mock-a-jumbie and young mummies, David and Goliath, the clowns and the Nerga Business were among the featured performers.
For Nisbett, in order to further boost the culture heritage of St.Kitts-Nevis, “it just needs to be enacted upon and to advance it, apply more financial support towards building the whole esteem of our cultural heritage because it’s a very good thing and it’s only going to get better and better; it will get better. The scenery today is good. I like the atmosphere. It just needs to be capitalised upon.”
