#BTEditorial – Let’s help NIFCA celebrate its 50th anniversary

The National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA), celebrating its golden anniversary this year, was launched in fine style on Wednesday night.

The festival, which features showcases and competitions in dance, music, film, visual arts, culinary arts, literary arts and theatre arts, has been the developmental stage for many of our established artists and artistes.

While plans for this year’s festival were revealed at the launch, the visionaries and pioneers of NIFCA were saluted as well.

Then stories were told of an idea which was fleshed out and then became a reality. The late Arden Clarke and his wife Jeanette Layne-Clarke, both creative writers and arts activists, first came up with the idea of a national arts festival as a means of nation-building. An organising committee was formed and the first NIFCA was staged in November 1973.

From then till now, many of the island’s top talent first started out on the NIFCA stage. For 50 years, the festival has served our country well. On that stage, school choirs, community groups, church groups, budding musicians, aspiring actors, would-be dancers and inmates of Dodds Prison are all afforded the opportunity to show off.

Aspiring writers, those interested in culinary delights as well as visual artists, and photographers all have a platform which allows them to hone their skills in healthy rivalry. Those who excel win awards ranging in value from $2 000 to $20 000.

Fifty years on, the festival still provides a massive platform for persons in different art forms to showcase their skills, express themselves and share in a community of like-minded individuals. Work displayed at the festival continues to highlight social, economic and environmental issues in a form that can be easily digested by the audiences that attend.

The festival has certainly evolved throughout the years. The National Cultural Foundation has been committed to ensuring that “the tradition of excellence continues”.

Like other events, the most challenging period to date was during the COVID-19 pandemic where live shows were prohibited. There was no NIFCA in 2020. However, in 2021, the NIFCA Online channel served as the vehicle to ensure those tuned in at home still got their serving of the festival.

Thousands abroad and at home found interviews with musical icons compelling with the programme Reminisce. Actors, actresses and spoken word artistes were a part of theatre arts Rewind. Those interested in literary arts were logged on to a radio drama, Ashes to Ashes. In culinary arts, they were given tips during the Cooking the Enid Maxwell Way episodes. But the biggest hit was the Bajan Songbook production.

The 24-hour channel not only offered new content but also gave a sense of nostalgia with the airing of NIFCA’s past.

What that period did was allow for more showcasing and story-telling, since participants did not have to bother about the rigours of competition.

Last year’s NIFCA saw the introduction of NIFCA Music in the Square every Friday in November. The free event was essentially an open-air concert which allowed multiple schools across the island as well as community groups to perform before the crowds at Golden Square Freedom Park.

The Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre was home to three nights of drama and spoken word. NIFCA film was a night of all locally produced films.

Prior to 2020, NIFCA was competition-oriented, unlike the pandemic and post-pandemic period which brought about the concept of showing off. The 2022 theme song sent that message clear: “Come leh we show off, NIFCA belong to all ah we”.

What is interesting about this year is that the NCF, through its Chief Cultural Officer Andrea Wells, has committed to merging the two. Based on what was shared with the public on Wednesday, the NCF will for the first time stage NIFCA with both showcases and competitions.

Music in the Square returns; however, there is a NIFCA music final planned as well. All of the performing arts have returned to competition. Registration for competitors has been opened in dance, music, and theatre arts. 

Creatives stand to benefit greatly from this year’s NIFCA, both monetarily and developmentally. New awards for this year include:

The NIFCA 50th Anniversary Award: a cash prize of $2 000 in each discipline being offered for the most outstanding awarded entry.

An award to commemorate the Landship’s 160th anniversary also valued at $2 000 per discipline.

The Business Entrepreneurship Prize valued at $15 ,000 in each discipline.

Two New Icon Awards: Gene Carson in Dance and Peter Edey in Culinary Arts. Both awards are valued at $3 000 each.

In Music, the Best Folk Performance award from 2023 has been renamed The Emile Straker Award.

The National Transformation Initiative Citizens Award per discipline valued at $2 000.

Wells told the media that a national mural project which involved seven schools paying tribute to seven NIFCA Icons will be done during the festival as well.

The programme for this year’s festival is certainly ambitious. It is unprecedented – and some may say a tall order. However, if the NCF can indeed pull it off, it would be the most fitting way to toast NIFCA’s golden anniversary.

We hope that Bajans go out during the month of national pride and patronise our local creatives. The only way that NIFCA’s 50 years of existence and excellence can be truly given pride of place is if there are receptive audiences eager and ready to join the golden celebration.