Look to the new Year...

I looks amogst the things I have written over the years and I find a promise I had made to myself in 2010...I share it as my first post of 2013 to set the tone for my year




it is said that wisdom is gained when one untethers the future from the past and resolves to just live life...while that is do-able and can be laudable, I find myself at an impasse...i can let go of the hurt, release the anger, doubt, scorn, disdain, antipathy, corruption...the list goes on, but why should i relinquish the good memories? of laughs stolen and shared, good friends, good times, of fun formative experiences as mischief of youth becomes bane of maturity?...the answer is simple...happy memories have the same amt of power to hold us in the past and cloud our judgement...they can make us naive, stubborn, idealistic....which are good in moderation, but can all to easily be to our undoing....the question I raise is why bother? after one has expended all this effort to "live life" what comes next? do we really start to "enjoy" the experience? who's to say that one was not already doing so? why are we so caught up with "optimising life" that we forget that we just need to LIVE IT?




so i'll "live it"I will read and dream- to keep my mind alive and nourish my sense of emotional jointure with the worldI will sing- for my sanity is above all thoughts of my inadequacyI will dance- for physical catharsis is liberatingI also shallReflect- if one does not look back one loses the lessons needed to go forwardReform- innovation is needed in order to stay afloatPreserve- for one cannot in changing to adapt endeavour to lose oneselfConserve- Possibilities are infinite, but in the grand scheme i am frail and finiteObserve- if it becomes a nihilist battle, one needs the strength to walk...

Hmmm...

"We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
~ Aristotle 

Word-Soul-Redbones Edition II

OMG!!!!!! *squeals in excite createment*

ok...well, no, I'm not known to be "starstruck" but this was cause for some excitement.
I got to meet The Awesome Ms Tanya Stephens!!!!!

Mario, TANYA, Davell and I after the show

  the second staging of Tribe Sankofa's "Word-Soul-Redbones edition" at the Redbones blues cafe was every bit as entertaining as i'd hoped with the double whammy bonus of seeing Tanya Stephens performing some of the standards I love from her rep, even bussing a piece of Boom Wuk *YESSS!!!* ***(((Pauses here to acknowledge the awesomeness that is Renee Imani McDonald, dancer extraordinare LOVE seeing her perform)))***, and seeing the awesome Michael-Sean Harris Perform -wait for it- Mountain! this song I LOVE! God hearing it live again was awesome, a shame Kevan wasnt there to play the necessary and very sexy kumina rhythm as accompaniment...then there was his singing wining on the table top *goes full retard in privacy of room*...all in all a splendid show, mad props to le bestie Hanief the group's musical director, and Davell Thompson, who is just a bowl of awesomeness...Special praise to Aldane and Javed, hard to believe my younglings from Ardenne are now out in the world *sniff*

Succour on a Dark Day...

Looking through some old files on my phones temporarily de-commissioned memory card had me in a bit of a nostalgic mood, then I stumbled on a mini clip of JYC learning De Cormier's Ride on from two years ago, brought a much needed smile to my face. I share it here with you, a few seconds of just singing for the fun of it. hope it brightens yours too

Short Story fever...*does disco move*

I dont really know what inspired this, was in bed unable to sleep and after finally getting to doze i jumped awake and THIS CAME...So I wrote it down..what do you think?

I slowly trudge to the cut-stone façade of the administrative building, my footfalls announced by the crunch of gravel. It had been years since the fire, and yet more since I had last set foot at Crowley Hall, vowing never to return. Inexplicably, I had been more drawn as successive years rolled, then slowly ground on, until the will to keep my oath vanished entirely. A sea of memories flowed in, and my conscience reeled. I chided myself at my idiocy in ever thinking that, by avoiding Crowley that I would escape the memories; the joys , sighs, the sorrows...and through it all -  Him...
       My imagination conjures his spectre, and he comes to stand before me: the arrogant set of his squared jaw, softened by that beatific smile, small yet sensuous mouth, and those eyes...those eyes the colour of aged  spiced rum, yet a thousand times more intoxicating, which could pin you to heated submission or ravage you with icy despair...I was a fool to have ever tried to forget. So lost in the past I was oblivious to the intrusion of another until I felt the soft touch on my shoulder, suspending but not shattering the spell of recollection.
 "I'll take a ride back to the hotel with Monty, you come back when-" he paused, a breath hitched in his throat, as i sensed more than saw his body loosen, resignation seeping into him. "just...come back...please?" he turned and headed back to the cars, not waiting for a response, for which I was grateful; I would have had no clue what to say. I watch his slump-shouldered retreat without really seeing him, my mind being transported back decades before the present. where now forests had reclaimed, memory repaired, transformed and transfigured reality, nostalgia creating an almost tangible thing of my regression...and I was taken back to that day, 20 years prior, when Octavion had done it...the day he drew his last breath in my arms

of Dances and growth...Panorama:The Next Generation

So...the Weekend of the third of November, The Company Dance theatre opened curtain on our 24th season of dance "PANORAMA:The Next Generation"...
LOVED IT!!!!

My Dance partner, Jo-Ann Morris and I in Wilson's "Whisper"(2012)

An about face in the 2nd Movement (men's dance) of
Wilson's "PANORAMA:The Next Generation" (2012)

I enjoyed alot of the choreo entrusted to me, and I especially was moved to deep emotion when I had discovered that I had been promoted to a Junior member of the company...I felt vindicated after the long-though fun- nights, injuries and fatigue while going through my subsequent days ... Mr Anthony Wilson, Artistic Director, I am immensely grateful for the Opportunity, Mr Ricardo McKenzie, for being the awesomest friend for making me tag along to join with you, I owe you the biggest hug in LIFE, Mr Sigmund Morgan, for the constant encouragement, Grazie! to Mr Jerren Chambers, for the talks and encouragement, Zurie Johnson, for lightening (and then infuriatingly darkening) the bad days...we've come a long way from being "those feisty UWI boys" and I could not ask for more awesome guys to be lumped with :-) I must mention the camaraderie of Mssrs Corve DaCosta and David Reid, a league above but still great persons to share a stage with and the up and coming Mr R. Barrett

The Company in the finale of the title piece of the show Panorama!

Of solos, concerts and SOLO...me Alone

So some weekends back the Jamaica Youth Chorale had our annual flagship concert "Ancestor Voices". I had been asked to submit an arrangement of the Jamaican Spiritual "Me Alone", which tells the story of Jesus' temptation and fasting in the wilderness. I was ecstatic the director loved my arrangement (though he wasn't surprised at that, his words: "give you anything sad or dark and it must come out good"), and the rehearsals devoted to it and my hearing it were very touching moments in my life...then terror struck
"...So Carl, go ahead and try out the solo..."
*Gasps* what? uhm, can I just ...not, please? I never write with myself in mind for a solo and would not dream of singing a solo I've written let alone premièring it! I was terror and awestruck simultaneously...and went on to be the soloist in my own piece at the concert...well received rendition even if it felt like an out of body experience...a friend/group of friends conspired to record my experience (did I mention I am slowly hating the Video feature of smartphones? *shakes head*) and proceeded to regale me of the mistakes odd nuances and (few) good moments of the piece...