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History, culture, heritage and a good time with great people: that’s Nevis Culturama.
From its inception, Nevis’ Culturama Festival has been the ‘Caribbean’s Greatest Summer Lime’.
It began with a meeting of the Nevis Dramatic and Cultural Society (NEDACS) in 1974. Before that, Nevis celebrated Christmas and culture with sister island St. Kitts in December at the St. Kitts Nevis National Carnival.
Culturama is a flamboyant demonstration of Nevis’ culture from its folklore, to the music and dancing and displays of local talent.
During the National Carnival, Nevis always had rich cultural performances, however, following the Christena Disaster where a ferry sank in 1970, many cultural practitioners perished and the Christmas celebrations on Nevis went into steady decline.
In February 1974 NEDACS held a discussion about this decline and decided to host a festival. December would not be the chosen month as they did not want to clash with Carnival on St. Kitts. July/August became the designated time for the hosting of Culturama to coincide with Emancipation Day.
This, according to Chairman of the Culturama Secretariat ‘Abonaty’ Liburd who said Culturama continued under NEDACS until 1986/87 when the Nevis Culturama Committee was formed.
He said the Culturama Committee found it difficult after some time to host Culturama and in 1990 the Nevis Island Administration nationalized Culturama and established the Culturama Secretariat. The establishment of the Nevis Department of Culture followed two years late.
Then in 1998, a full-time Culturama Secretariat was formed and Abonaty became the Executive Director, a post he still holds.
In 1999 he was named chairman of the festival for the festival’s silver jubilee (Culturama25). He returned to the post in 2017 and now plays the dual role.
Culturama Then
When Culturama started in 1974 it was a weekend of activities. It began on a Thursday afternoon with an arts and crafts exhibition. On Saturday there would be a food fair in the heart of Charlestown. In the evening there was a calypso show, then known as the Culturama calypso show. The Sunday evening would be the Miss Culture Talent show. Then on August Monday, there was an aquatic sports meet in the morning and a parade of troupes through the streets of Charlestown in the afternoon.
From Abonaty’s recollection, calypso songs were more culturally inclined than they are today, where participants would sing about reviving the island’s culture, the food, folklore and folk music.
The Miss Culture Talent contestants wore dresses and costumes made from flour bags and indigenous materials such as the national flower the flamboyant, jumbie beads and shack shack.
Folk Music was a feature of the festivities and included the big drum, kettle drum, bass drum and fife.
Although Steel Bands were not indigenous to Nevis, bands such as Milo and Apollo were the ones that provided musical accompaniment for Culturama activities.
Culturama Quick Facts:
- Elsa Wilkin and Virgil Browne representing St. James Parish won the first Mr & Miss Talented Youth Pageant.
- The Miss Culture Queen Pageant was originally named the Miss Culture Talent Show.
- At the time when Culturama was first introduced, the first Tuesday in August was not a designated holiday.
- The First Culturama Calypso Show featured just three calypsonians, one of which still participates in the show.
- Zero of Brown Hill was the first calypso king.
- The foundation of Music for Culturama was the String Band which has the banjo, the fife, the guitar and the triangle
Culturama Now
Gradually the indigenous materials were no longer used by the Talent Show contestants. Calypsonians began getting into social commentary and so political commentary became the order of the day for calypsonians.
There is now the Mr Kool contest, the Ms Culture Swimwear pageant, a Wet Fete, 5 in one jam and the Long Jam in which revellers jam behind electronic bands for four miles from Gingerland to Charlestown.
“We wanted to keep Culturama relevant. We wanted to compete with festivals being staged at the same time around the region: Antigua Carnival, Barbados Crop Over and Tortola’s festival.
There were a number of Nevisians living in the diaspora and so we wanted to continue to attract Nevisians living in Canada to come home instead of staying there for Caribana.”
“The festival evolved. We had to revolutionize the festival but this was met with a lot of opposition. Members of the original NEDACS group felt we were diluting our culture by introducing Mr Kool, the swimwear competition and the more modern types of dresses for the Queen contestants.”
Despite these fears, cultural traditions have been maintained through the department of culture which later became the Nevis Cultural and Development Foundation.
“We have still managed to maintain some of the cultural heritage like the masquerades, clowns, johnny walker, sweet lemon, Japanese girls and dramatic presentations which were an original part of the festival.”
Culturama Is Back
The Minister of Culture on Nevis recently announced that for the first time, Culturama will not be held in July/August. Instead, The 47th staging of Culturama will take place from September 16th to 20th with pre-activities in early September.
It will be a Covid19 compliant festival. This means that due to the ongoing pandemic, the customary hosting of the events with large crowds will not be taking place.
The number of spectators for events will be guided by advice from the National Covid19 Task Force.
“If we are not allowed to have patrons at the events we will have a virtual platform. So far, we plan to have an opening ceremony, Calypso and Soca Monarch competition, Culture Pot where the Nevis Cultural Development Foundation will be showcasing a lot of the folklore. We will not be having our usual food fair for fear of crowds.”
The Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with the Nevis Culturama Committee will host Heritage day where persons will be encouraged to do all things Nevisian on that day.
A T-shirt Mas has also been introduced to the Culturama calendar of events and it was announced that only fully vaccinated persons will be allowed to participate in this event.
“Despite the scaled-back festival, we still want to give our patrons locally, regionally and in the diaspora, something to for Culturama 47.
The hosting of Culturama 46 in 2020 was cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic.
This year, through a slogan competition, Nevis found the most fitting theme to let the world know to ‘Take a Snap #NevisCulturama is Back!’
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