Monthly Archives: June 2011

Feature Article – Perry Henzell’s The Harder They Come

[This article was originally published in The Jamaica Sunday Observer. This online version has been slightly amended from the original article.]

A month after the passing away of writer and director Perry Henzell, Sarala Estruch ventures behind-the-scenes to discover the reasons behind the phenomenal success of Jamaica’s first feature film.

People, people, everywhere! Young people, old people, rich and poor; they all flocked out and flooded the Carib theatre in Crossroads at the heart of Kingston. The cinema had never witnessed such commotion. Outside the queue was so long you couldn’t see the end of it, inside was utter chaos! Ram-packed – no one was able to move an inch. Not even the Prime Minister was able to get through the hoard of bodies. And what was all this in aid of? It was 1972 and Jamaica’s first feature film was just about to be premiered on home ground: The Harder They Come.

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Dance Review: Into The Light

[This article was originally published in The Jamaica Sunday Observer. This online version has been slightly amended from the original article.]

A shining performance by Movements Dance Company for their Silver Jubilee

Anticipation was high as a brimming full house sat in The Little Theatre awaiting the rising of the curtains last Sunday evening. The evening was to be the concluding performance of the 25th anniversary season of Jamaica’s Movements Dance Company, and people had flocked out in the hundreds.
The curtains opened to reveal a large platform ornamented with a simple backdrop – an abstract medley of brash colours over a large white canvas – and a solo figure sat at the left hand corner of the stage in a hunched position. It was a solemn commencement for what was to be a celebratory evening. The male dancer soon began to display, through writhing gestures, the tale of his anguish as an AIDS sufferer. A sequence of cinematic ‘flashbacks’ marked with emotive choreography transported the audience into this tragic world. Certainly a pressing contemporary issue, I commend the choreographer, Monica Campbell, for her innovative and daring, if somewhat disjointed piece, aptly entitled ‘Flashback’.

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Book Review: Iron Balloons

[This article was originally published in The Jamaica Sunday Observer. This online version has been slightly amended from the original article.]

Think Jamaican writers cyaan bus’? Think again! Here is a book of Caribbean stories that soars way above expectation!

Iron Balloons

Iron Balloons is the latest publication to emerge from the Calabash Writer’s Workshops that take place in Kingston every year. The workshops are part of the initiative of the Calabash International Literary Festival Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that is working towards eradicating the perception that Jamaican writers ‘cyaan bus’’! Iron Balloons (whose title is a direct reference to this belief and is clearly ironic) is steel proof that the Jamaican literary scene is not bereft of talent, it simply lacks the opportunities.

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And the journey begins…

Hello all, I am building my site slowly but surely. It is in the making.

A great big thank you to Aaron who is helping me build this fantastic website, and who is being very patient with me as I slowly but surely get to grips with HTML.

(If you know anyone who needs to get their website up and running, check out Aaron’s website. He knows his stuff and charges very reasonable rates.)

Coming soon… I am going to put up some reviews that I wrote way back in 2007 and 2008 when I worked as Arts Reviewer for The Sunday Observer in Jamaica. I hope you enjoy them!