London,
England - Four years ago
Nostalgia Steelband members
organised the first European
Steelpan Conference (perhaps the
first globally) in collaboration
with the University of East
London entitled
“Steelband
Music and Education in the 21st
Century; Projecting a Vision of
the Future through Global
Experiences,” immediately
after London’s Notting Hill
carnival in 2006.
Although steelband started
making its entry into London
schools from 1964, our view is
that even at the present time,
it is still not taken seriously
and is merely used for events such
as summer fetes or shows in
parks to provide background
music etc. Because 90% of
Nostalgia’s members are
teachers at various levels
including universities, we took
it upon our shoulders to try to
push its boundaries into higher
education, especially
universities in the United
Kingdom (UK). Both of
Nostalgia’s directors have
appointments at the University
of East London (Dr. Lionel
McCalman holds a full-time
lectureship in Education while
Professor Haroun N. Shah has a
part-time Chair in Science)
- hence a natural collaboration
was forged and supported by the
Vice-Chancellor who opened this
conference at the university’s
impressive Dockland’s Campus on
the banks of the Thames between August
30–31, 2006. There
were several major outcomes from
this meeting; one of which was
that we should aim to develop a
grading system for steelpan
along the same lines as those in
existence for traditional
instruments such as the piano,
violin etc. This was actively
pursued by the group SV2G (Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines 2nd
Generation) which
will be reporting back at the
2010 conference. It has been a
very successful programme which
was developed with the
University of the West Indies,
Trinidad and the first students
have already successfully taken
examinations. At the closing
stages of this meeting, the
audience of just over 130, voted
unanimously to hold these
conferences biennially.
Nostalgia playing at the opening ceremony - July 30, 2008 in the Accolade Recital
Hall, York University, to open the 2nd International Conference on Steelpan
Nostalgia took on this
responsibility and, in 2008,
with Trinidad reaching the
football world cup finals and
playing its first match in
Dortmund, Germany, it was
decided that Dortmund would be
used to hold the 2nd conference
to coincide with the presence of
the ‘Soca Warriors’ and, an
application was submitted with
our collaborators there, Pan Kultur to obtain EU
(European Union) funding to
support this event. However, we
soon became aware of a carnival
conference planned for Toronto
by Professor Christopher Innes
entitled ‘Carnival, ‘A People’s
Art’ and ‘Taking Back the
Streets” scheduled for July 30–August 3, 2008, Toronto, Canada. We immediately contacted
Professor Innes to discuss a
collaboration, with Nostalgia to
bring in a steelpan component to
the conference. We were warmly
received and played at the
opening ceremony while members
presented 5 papers on on-going
projects in London (see
Pan
Podium Issue 18, pages 8-9,
2009). However, what became so
apparent at this highly
successful meeting, was that
some of the icons in the field
such as Peter Minshall spoke so
naturally about the logical
cohesion among steelpan,
calypso and carnival; something
that drifted apart markedly as
the carnival arts left Trinidad
and began developing in the UK
and other countries. For this
reason, it became the theme of
this meeting scheduled for October
23–24, 2010.
The ‘Artists of Notting Hill Carnival’ post-card by Ruth Tompsett & Carl Gabriel, both of whom
are organisers of this year’s conference and are presenting
October is designated ‘Black
History Month’, so it seemed
appropriate to schedule this
conference, entitled
‘Integrating
the Three Elements
of Carnival - Steelpan, Calypso
and Mas’ during this period. To
extend our remit so broadly
beyond steelpan, necessitated
help from relevant organisations
such as the ‘Association of
British Calpsonians’ (ABC), the
‘British Association of
Steelbands’ (BAS), the
‘UK
Centre for Carnival Arts’ etc.
The organising committee
comprising Haroun Shah (Chair),
Lionel McCalman,
Alexander-D-Great, Ruth Tompsett
and Carl Gabriel have arranged
an exciting programme with an
international line-up of experts
in the field to execute this.
Alexander-D-Great is the UK’s
Calypso Monarch for 2010 and
will speak about the
craftsmanship of calypso
including its political views,
while Ruth Tompsett, who has been
organising university courses in
Carnival Arts for over 30 years
and is currently taking her
major exhibition
‘Midnight
Robbers’ around the globe, with
her collaborator Lesley Ferris,
will chart the origin of
carnival out of Africa. Carl
Gabriel is an internationally
renowned artist who sculpts
carnival figures in wire, while
Nostalgia is the UK’s oldest
steelband and still retains the
‘pan-around-neck’ tradition.
Judge Ray Funk, from Alaska, an
internationally recognised
authority in the field, will
deliver the Plenary Lecture
entitled ‘Documenting the
Calypso Art Form and Carnival’
and will feature hitherto unseen
footage of some of the most
poignant moments from legends in
carnival arts. Anthony Joseph -
poet, singer, writer and
university lecturer, will
present some of his most recent
work on the great Lord Kitchener,
while there will be several
commentaries on the progress of
steelband in schools and
universities including
presentations from Britain’s
premier university, Cambridge. A
presentation by Keith Khan who
used his skills at Notting Hill
carnival to showcase some of the
biggest events globally, such as
the Millennium Dome show in
2000, the Queen’s Coronation
Golden Jubilee parade in 2002
and now London’s Olympics 2012,
will present the audience with
his experience in organizing
events of such magnitude.
Notting Hill Carnival is central
to carnivals in Europe and over
the years this has been
documented by Dr. Yoko Kimura
from Nagoya University, Japan.
She will join us in London to
speak on the sociological
aspects of carnival while Nestor
Sullivan from Trinidad (Pamberi)
will present the audience with a
view of Notting Hill carnival as
an invited judge. A presentation
by the ‘UK Centre for Carnival
Arts’ will show the audience
some of the secrets of the trade
in a workshop entitled
‘Behind
the Scenes Construction of Mas.’
This promises to be a watershed
in the field of Carnival Arts
and we are urging anybody who
can attend to do so and share
your experiences during two days
of excitement at the University
of East London’s newly built
state-of-the-art facilities,
close to the site of London’s
2012 Olympics.
|