According to:

Dr. Nicolette Bethel

Dr. Nicolette Bethel is a Bahamian author, poet, playwright, professor, cultural anthropologist and former Director General of Cultural Affairs for the Government of The Bahamas. She is the founder and Festival Director of Shakespeare in Paradise, a theatre festival for the city of Nassau. She was born in 1963 to E. Clement and Keva Bethel. She is an ardent believer in the fundamental capacity of all Bahamians to make global contributions, and rejects utterly the all-too-common concept of Bahamians as people who need to be guided by visions from abroad. All of her enterprises are grounded in the premise that The Bahamas and Bahamians can change the world. She is convinced that in a nation the size of The Bahamas, change can happen in the blink of an eye.

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“In The Theatre, You Never Know What’s Gonna Happen”

"Theatre was all around me when I was growing up. Every place you went — church, school — had a performance component.

"My mother Keva was the principal and then the president of the College of the Bahamas. And my father Clement was a concert pianist and a composer and a choral director. Then I had a grandmother who was the most amazing storyteller. So performance was always around me, and it was just a small step to get from that everyday involvement to the actual stage.

"The very first time I remember being on stage, somebody picked me to play Mary in a school Christmas pageant. I might have been six or seven. I had no lines — I just had to stand there and look virginal.

"When I was around eleven or twelve, I wrote stories all the time, and I discovered that my stories were coming out in play form. Not that I knew anything about how to write for the stage, but it was dialogue back and forth, and laid out like I’d seen plays laid out in books. When I was thirteen, fourteen, I wrote an adaptation of Cinderella for a class pageant. Nassau also had a very active theatre scene, and my parents, being the parents they were, took me to see some of the plays and musicals. I remember very clearly the day I went to see Oliver! I made up my mind that one day I was going to play the Artful Dodger. Never happened!

"I did all this in high school, but when I went away to the University of Toronto, I just didn’t have the same mindset as the people I observed doing drama. It was a very Eurocentric, highly intellectualised, highly stylised approach to theatre, and it just did not resonate with me. I was always interested in storytelling.

"Then I met a woman who produced plays in French, which was my minor. She recruited me into her theatre company, and made me stage manager. They were doing Molière, and classical French comedy, and I loved it [...]

CLICK HERE to read full article by Nicholas Laughlin of Caribbean Beat.

According to:

Brooke Burnside

Brooke Burnside, daughter of Bahamian master artist Stan Burnside and his wife Dennie, was one of eight Bahamian students who received scholarships from the Sustainable Exumas Project this past summer to participate in a Design Career Discovery programme at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She kindly gave our publication her take on this one-of-a-kind experience in the field of design. –Ed.

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"This summer I participated in Harvard University's Career Discovery programme at their Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was an intensive, six-week long studio-based programme with students from all over the world and with various levels of experience with design. Four concentrations were offered: Urban Planning, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture, and Architecture – the latter being the discipline I chose.

"I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to attend this programme from the Sustainable Exumas Project. They are a group of faculty and students from Harvard's Design School that are working with Bahamians on ideas for better land-use in the Exumas. It was fascinating to see the amount of research and time they are investing in our islands. They made a point to make me, along with the other Bahamians attending the programme, feel at home in Cambridge.

"I came into this programme with a familiarity with visual art and filmmaking but no real specific experience with design or architecture. Our teachers helped us turn the creative thoughts and ideas we already had toward more of a design orientation through various tools, such as collaging and drawing. Focusing on iterative methods of working, our instruction was centered around translating these conceptual collages and drawings into final products through model-making and architectural drawing. The model-making and architectural drawing came together to create a very hands-on and accessible way of approaching and getting into architecture, which I really appreciated.

"I think one of the major things than stuck with me from this programme was the idea that design (when done well) is a problem-solving process. That it is not just simply making something look cool or making a building, but it is making motivated gestures that have well-thought out and intentional ramifications for people and environments. I think this knowledge can be very helpful to The Bahamas.

"I went into the programme thinking, 'I'll learn how buildings are made and these things can happen in that building.' But I think the programme challenged me to think more in terms of systematic design changes that modify a whole environment, rather than just what happens inside of one single structure."

Eight young Bahamians took part this past summer in the Design Career Discovery Programme at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. In addition to Brooke, Bahamian students Donnell Pinder, Jenna Chaplin, Fendy Pierre, Christie Chea, Michael Wilmore, Alecia Munnings and Ryan Weech also participated. A representative from the programme remarked, "The Bahamian students all did an exceptional amount of work, full of thought, rigour, and promise."

Two full scholarships (tuition and stipend) will be offered again for the academic year 2014-15 for Bahamian students to study in a degree programme or to participate in Career Discovery at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Brooke adds, "I would highly recommend this summer programme to anyone who is looking for new ways of structuring their creative thoughts and ideas."

CLICK HERE for more info on the programme and the scholarship.

For love of country

Bahamian artist Nadine Munroe has combined her love of country with her love of abstract art in her first solo exhibition in more than a decade.

The mixed media work is nostalgic in its subject matter but abstract in its technique, creating a refreshing juxtaposition of yesteryear and today.

“I don’t limit myself,” said Munroe. “I am inspired by my surroundings.”

This is obvious from her most recent body of work entitled “Feel the Rhythm”, now on exhibit at Hillside House Gallery, Cumberland Street.

Munroe uses paint, fabric and old photographs to create deeply layered mixed-media pieces that she compares to the human character.

“No one single event makes up someone. Different events and roles create a personality. That’s the way I treat my work,” Munroe told Guardian Arts & Culture.

Munroe, mother of three, wife of a pastor and businessman, businesswoman and, of course, artist, can appreciate the different roles and life events that shape an individual.

In between raising three children — including a set of twins — and helping her husband run a successful landscaping company, Munroe always found the time to create, whether it was in a studio at her mother’s house, behind the landscape shop on Carmichael or at her Sandyport home studio and gallery [...]

CLICK HERE for full article by Erica Wells of The Guardian.

Theodore Elyett's Passion For High Fashion

There is no world more influential and more powerful than the fashion world. And one individual who knows that all too well is (the Jamaican television series) Mission Catwalk's season-three winner Bahamian fashion designer Theodore Elyett, who, despite his love for broadcast journalism, has decided to pursue his passion for high fashion. The next Karl Lagerfeld perhaps? Tom Ford? Wherever the road might lead, there is no doubt that he will make a mark in the fashion world.

In a recent interview with Flair, Elyett revealed that fashion had always been in his blood.

"My grandmother was a seamstress; and my mother was once a major garment manufacturer with her own factory in The Bahamas, so fashion and garment manufacturing is in my blood, " he stated.

His professional journey, however, began 15 years ago, at the tender age of 13. "I started my career as a fashion designer 15 years ago. My best friend in high school was a professional model at the time and had entered a local modelling competition. She knew of my passion for the fashion industry, so she encouraged me to create a garment for her to compete in. This collaboration launched my fashion career at 13 years old," he reminisced.

20 Questions with Jace McKinney

1. What’s been your most inspirational moment in the last five years?
It was when I did a LARP (Live Action Role Play) Bible Camp to reach out and connect with the youth of the Chippingham community. It was a two-week camp reflecting on the battle of David and Goliath. The support was overwhelming. I remember the night before the fun day Big Battle. As it came up to the final moments, there were a lot of things that were not finished in concern with the battle armor, weapons and costumes. It was like a miracle to me. The kids came and joined in, in getting their costumes completed and helped each other in getting ready. It was a moment of the most perfect synergy, love and unity. Then, we went out on to the battle field, slew some giants, won the war, ate some veggie hotdogs and had juice. We had a blast. I was very reluctant to leave that moment.

2. What’s your least favorite piece of artwork?
My eighth grade Dragonball Z Drawings. Every so often when I am clearing out my things and throwing away useless stuff, I come across them and say ‘ew.’ But for some reason, I keep them.

3. What’s your favorite period of art history?
The modern period of comics and children’s books [...]

CLICK HERE for full interview at The Guardian.

Art International 2014: Call for Works

Princess Azamat (Bo) Guirey of Old Fort Bay, Nassau invites Bahamian artists and artists resident in The Bahamas to submit works of art to be showcased in Art International 2014 opening March 14-15, 2014 at Guaranty Trust Bank in Lyford Manor, Western Road.

Art International 2014 is celebrating The Bahamas' 40th year of Independence by exclusively showcasing the work of local artists. Princess Guirey remarked, "I have been very excited by the work I have seen being produced in The Bahamas these past few years. I look forward with delight to host next year's exhibition in celebration of this great country's independence. I invite the artists all over The Bahamas to submit their work."

Art International is an annual art event that was founded by artist and long-time Bahamian resident Princess Azamat (Bo) Guirey of Old Fort Bay in 2004. Her desire was to create an art event that brought together world-class Bahamian and international artists to showcase their work to the Nassau community, particularly the communities of Lyford Cay and Old Fort Bay. "It has been a successful and rewarding venture to see different artists from different cultures all showing their work together in a great space," says the Princess. For the past number of years, the Art International exhibition has been held at Guaranty Trust Bank in Lyford Manor. Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank, James P. Coyle, has been a great supporter of the Princess and the Art International exhibitions and welcomes next year's event.

For more details and to submit your work to Art International 2014, please contact Princess Bo Guirey at bguirey@mac.com.