Cari-Folk's Culturefest 2010 combines song, drama

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

The Cari-Folk Singers' Culturefest 2010, held over three days and pulling in a very good house for the final show on a rainy weekend, was as much about the drama as the singing.

Which is not to negate the singing of Cari-Folk or Nexxus, whose African Suite ensured a post-intermission rabbit start. Also the two 'ds' - dancing and drumming - the former from Dance Xpressionz and the latter from a trio, before the closing Dinky Sweet were well positioned in the first and second segments respectively.

But it was the drama and humour, notably by Joan Andrea Hutchinson in her multiple roles - a literally crying widow (with twin tear tracks), a fire-burning Rasta and the wigged and long-socked Bleachie among them, as she provided the connecting links between segments - that made the concert memorable.

And Hutchinson may have been mainly a solo, but she was not the sole dramatist for the night, members of the Cari-Folk Singers very much singing thespians at points.

Uncomfortable mass

So they formed the grumbling, uncomfortable mass at the mercy of the driver and teetered across the stage on Blinkin Bus in the opening Happenings set. At the end of Hebby Load the men of the chorale crumpled under the weight of women's expectations. The standout combination of singing and acting came on I Hear Them Say from the oldies segment, the potentially wayward lass gradually melting her jittery lover who performed a rare solo in his suspicion.

There were props too, headstones for Lang Gutt and Hawd Aise glowing to the singers' left in Duppy Tory and a waif-like ghost first scaring them from the wings and then the back of the stage.

The audience had a hearty laugh at the eventual realisation that the red-stocking capped, black-clad women waving their arms in Selena were depicting the John Crows calling for the woman.

Dance Xpressionz took the audience through a chronology of recorded Jamaican popular music, they too having their dramatic moments, a tall man and much shorter woman pairing demonstrating ska while a female trio duly made themselves lively to the inevitable Marley. The dancehall segment was gloriously filled with compact, bouncing derrieres. Nexxus' African Suite was filled with movement to go with the song, at one point the men and women forming a double arrowhead, men on the inside.

Dearth of male voices

However, the dearth of male voices in Cari-Folk during the first segment was clear, as they were outnumbered almost two to one and outsung (in volume) by more than that ratio. The male presence improved post-intermission.

Cari-Folk's costuming was appropriate - removable Afros, flairs, plaids and platforms for the oldies (which closed with them, including Hutchinson, doing the ska en masse), traditional attire in Happenings and glowering black in Duppy Tory.

Again, though, it was Hutchinson's costuming which hit the spot, as she was 'Mother Green', declaring herself a "preeminent duppy conqueror" and then a fiery Rastafarian declared "Rasta no fraid a duppy but Rasta nah tek no chance, so Rasta a go splurt!"

The audience loved it.