Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for Culture, Senator Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight, has underscored the importance of the National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA) to the Barbadian landscape, saying its “birth” provides the space for the full expression of the arts.
Speaking during the launch of NIFCA 2023, under the theme 50 Years of Excellence Remembered, in Queen’s Park, Constitution Road, St. Michael last night, she stressed that the early builders of the festival, the late Jeanette Layne Clarke, her late husband Arden, and Elombe Mottley, made a “clarion call in 1973, for Barbadians to “value and see Barbadian arts by embracing the rhythms of our own culture”.
Senator Munro-Knight stated: “This was 1973… This was the birth… This was the context of NIFCA. It was a space in which we were now coming of age in our own national identity.
…And in this context for me, it is no wonder that our Father of Independence (the late Prime Minister Errol Walton Barrow) and I got this quote from the preface of a publication of the New World Independence Issue, in which he said, ‘our total commitment now and for the future is nothing less than the social and cultural upliftment of our nation. In this challenging task, we know who we are, whence we came, and where we are heading.”’”
The Minister reasoned that the project of nationhood, as enunciated by then Prime Minister Barrow, was a call to bring Barbadians together from a social and cultural standpoint, to have the confidence to face the world and the challenges presented at that time.
Dr. Munro-Knight added that the birth of NIFCA in November 1973, provided the structured space for the expression of our arts, and for the “oppressed” to see themselves in a space in which they were valued and where they could “breathe, rest and sit in their own expressions”, but had now evolved from its early genesis.
“NIFCA had to evolve… The early themes we had about folk… and the resonance within schools and community involved…complex themes that reflected what we have faced and what we are still facing, climate change…domestic violence, and things that we didn’t want to say out loud, the NIFCA stage provided expression for…” she stated.
The Minister continued: “It created a mirror for us to look at our societies and say things that we were perhaps a little bit uncomfortable with and perhaps, that is the job of the arts. But the impact of NIFCA goes beyond just the performance that we see on the stage. It goes just beyond the prizes, and even the acknowledgement. For me, there is the intrinsic value, as I said before, of us being able to celebrate our culture and the people that live it, breathe it and then express it for us…”
Senator Dr. Munro-Knight added that NIFCA belongs to the people of Barbados, as “Barbadians from all walks of life”, can see themselves represented on the NIFCA stage.
There was also an address from the Chairman of the National Cultural Foundation, Dr. Jasmine Babb, video testimonials from the past, and entertainment.
Prior to the start of the official launch, actor Victor Clifford narrated a piece on the history of NIFCA, as patrons strolled across the courtyard and entered the Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre.