London Is The Place For Me, Tricycle Theatre, London

A free festival, celebrating 50 years of independence for Trinidad & Tobago from 12th until 26th August.

To celebrate 50 years of political independence for Trinidad and Tobago, award-winning literature producer and curator Melanie Abrahams and musician/composer Dominique Le Gendre have teamed up to bring a free festival of classical and contemporary music, theatre, literature, spoken word, participation, dance, carnival and food over two weeks, that explores Trinidad and Tobago’s cultural fusion and connections to England.

Running most days, there will be a different speaker at Rum Lime Shop, a presentation by a mover and shaker with a strong Trinidad and Tobago connection. In an informal ‘limin’ style, they select and talk about a person from Trinidad or Tobago, past or present, that has inspired them and speakers include the Bush Artistic Director Madani Younis, groundbreaking publisher and broadcaster Margaret Busby, Hassan Mahamdallie, a radical theatre director, the internationally famed storyteller and orator Paul Keens-Douglas, and playwright Malika Booker. An aim of these sessions is to uncover artists and original thinkers who are outstanding and brilliant in their arts fields but may not be known as having origins in, and roots, to Trinidad and Tobago. The festival seeks to move beyond the limiting definition of Black British or generic Caribbean and show a wide-ranging, shape-shifting and more real representation of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.

London Is The Place For Me, 12th until 26th August, Tricycle Theatre, 269 Kilburn High Road, Kilburn, London NW6 7JR. www.trinbagovillage.com

Credits:
1. Paul Keens-Douglas