Folk Festival to award 38 Guyanese
Kaieteur News
July 18, 2004
The New York-based Guyana Folk Festival will award thirty-eight Guyanese, some of them dead, during its third annual Wordsworth McAndrew Award. The thirty-eight awards represent the number of years of Guyana’s independence. Those nominated have made important contributions to Guyana’s cultural life.
The awardees have shared their talents through broadcasting, cultural promotion, drama, music, painting, theatre, and writing. Many of the awardees have produced work in the genre related to this year’s festival theme: Guyanese Words: Written, Spoken, Sung, and Drawn.
Among those whose works have been notable for decades are: Edgar Mittelholzer, Jan Carew, Denis Williams, and the Rogers brothers, Eddie and Bert.
Wordsworth McAndrew is one of Guyana’s leading folklorist, poet, and creative artists. Through his work as a broadcaster in Guyana during the 1960s and 1970s, he helped to make Guyanese recognise and feel proud of their mythological and folkloric heritage. His study and celebration of Guyanese language and culture is an inspiration to the humble radio listener and to the scholar.
He used all media available to explain and promote Guyanese cultural characteristics. Wordsworth McAndrew is a pioneer. The 2004 Wordsworth McAndrew awardees were selected from a list of one hundred and fifty persons nominated by Guyanese worldwide. A committee chaired by Ron Lammy and Tangerine Clarke made its selection from a combination of attributes defined by originality, scope, impact / influence, integration, pioneering spirit, challenges and achievements.
The Awards Ceremony and Dinner Dance is billed for September 3, at the Rose Castle Grand Ballroom in Brooklyn, New York.
The awardees are:
1. Andre Sobryan -Theatre
2. Aubrey Cummings – Music
3. Aubrey Williams - Painting
4. Basil Hinds - Broadcasting
5. Bert Rogers - Music
6. Charlie Knights - Music
7. Chuck Girard - Music
8. Claire Goring - Cultural Promotion
9. Clairmonte Taitt - Broadcasting
10. Daphne Elaine Rogers - Drama
11. David Dabydeen - Writing
12. Denis Williams - Painting
13. Desiree Edgehill - Drama
14. Eddie Hooper - Music
15. Eddie Rogers - Music
16. Edgar Mittelholzer - Writing
17. Henry Muttoo - Theatre
18. Henry Rodney -Theatre
19. Jan Carew - Writing
20. John Agard & Grace Nicholls - Writing
21. John Rickford - Writing
22. Keith Proctor - Music
23. Malcolm Hall - Dance
24. Marc Matthews -Theatre
25. Michael Gilkes - Writing
26. Moses Josiah - Music
27. Philip Forrester - Music
28. Pitra Pyari - Dance
29. Rector Schultz - Music
30. Romanie Kalicharran - Dance
31. Ron Robinson -Theatre
32. Rudolph Shaw -Theatre
33. Sheik Sadeek - Writing
34. Uncle Ramdhani - Music
35. Victor Davson - Painting
36. Victor Forsythe - Broadcasting
37. Wilson Harris - Writing
38. Wrickford Dalgetty - Music
The 2004 Guyanese cultural heritage celebration begins with a symposium on Guyanese Words: Written, Spoken, Sung and Drawn at the Columbia University of New York campus in Manhattan on September 3.
On September 5, the Folk Festival Family Day will take place in Brooklyn and will feature folk games, including one-tip two-tip cricket, arts and crafts, Guyanese cuisine, queh-queh dancing, tassa drumming, May pole plaiting and other exciting cultural presentations.