#sexypink/Actor

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - Rest In Peace Mr Belafonte. What a remarkable man and life. You sang Calypso songs and put Trinidad and Tobago into the collective consciousness for generations to come.

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - In Bereavement - Thank you Rubadiri Victor for permission to reprint your recollections in text and image of a talent gone so soon.

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Rest in Perfect Peace Mark Akini Nottingham. My Deepest Condolences go out to his Family & Closest Friends- especially to a brother-in-arms like Arnold Goindhan... It is distressful when it is someone so young & still so full of Promise... Mark was an enormously creative soul, with a grand appetite for Life & Creative possibility. When a number of us sparked the underground creative movements of the 1990s, Mark and a cohort of his peers from the St Joseph Valley emerged as the next Rapso young guns- Black Lyrics. 

They were the face of the Rapso generation right after the Kindred generation. They in fact have a pretty good album of young Teen Rapso that has never been released. This may be a great time to bless it with air... The group of four escaped the limitations of their valley home and 'Pinny' and Mark especially descended into the sometimes viper-pit that could be Trini and Port of Spain theatre (lol). 

They actually broke the mold and did excellently for themselves, becoming steadfast working actors and creators- probably the hardest working theatre men of their generation... Mark was a member of my troupe of actors in my company- the WIRE BEND Folklore Theatre.

 They were the first people I called when I formed it in 2015. I owe him, Pinny, Renee Michelle King, Nicole Wong Chong, Karina Andrews 'Arlette', Kurtis Gross, and others so much because they committed to be the vehicles for me to tell my stories, and have done so since. Mark and Pinny in particular have been fearless in disappearing into roles and collaborating with my madness. Not every actor can act well in full body costumes and puppets- fewer can manage 7 complex costume changes, whilst nailing all the respective characters per play.  Dragons, Imps, Lions, Wolves, Old Men, Children, African Kings,- Mark never hesitated to wrestle with the role and render it. He was especially my go-to to play 'The Boy'- that recurring immortal archetype of the mythical innocent young male. 

He did not need to act it- he was very much the Boy. Apart from his fresh-facedness he had that openess, curiousity, and appetite for life. He also had the naughtiness of the Boy too... Because of this and his wit, he also was my choice to portray my version of the traditional Anansi... He nailed it...He and Pinny, like many of us who choose this life, have a profound connection to 'the Child inside' and for the sacredness and essentialness of Play. So Mark was playful as he embodied those essential archetypes- and also as he moved through life. 

He was a committed Teacher, Actor, and Rapso-man. He was moving into being a full multi-media titan embracing film/video and more- especially dedicated to the disenfranchised Boys of the Street- the Zess generation. He wanted to record their songs and tell their stories in film (one of the other things about Mark is that he got things done). I think he understood how profoundly the Arts expanded his life from being an urban village boy from the St Joseph Valley with ceilings on his expectations. 

He wanted to repeat that emancipation for others...Mark- though young- was very much a family MAN. He had a relatively large-ish family and was an excellent father to his kids, who he adored. My heart goes out to them... Too young. This one. Too young. A lot of good ones are going. 

We can only hope it is as Stalin said, ''MORE COME...''We will dedicate the 2023 Season of Wire Bend in April to him. Rest in Peace, Young Brother...

[galleryyuhself]

Tony Hall on 'Eye to Eye', Part 1 of 5 (Banyan/GayelleTV, May 15th, 2010)

~Sexypink~ An important son of the soil, Tony Hall has died. We grieve his loss and lord his life. Rest in peace.

[sexypinkon]

~Sexypink~ Veteran actor Nigel Scott has died at the age of 73.Scott passed away on Sunday morning. He survived cancer for 18 years and held on for as long as he was able to. He leaves to mourn his wife Minnie Gopaulchan, sister Radio 97 announcer Celia Scott, children Jason, Dominic, Crystal and Kimiko, four grandchildren. Scott was a founding member of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop and had a long relationship with its founder the late Nobel laureate Derek Walcott since 1968.He acted in several of Walcott’s plays including The Joker of Seville, Pantomime, The Odyssey and O Starry Starry Night. He also worked on film projects with Walcott including The Rig and Hart Crane, the latter for PBS television. Scott also played the role of Serge in Art, Captain Von Trapp in the Sound of Music and Cassio in Othello. Scott was also the voice for several documentaries, radio and television commercials. His credits include Wild T&T, Inward Hunger and Unfinished Sentences by Mariel Brown. He also produced several plays including ManTalk and The Last of the Redmen which were both Cacique Award winners for Best Production. In a 2015 interview, Scott said: “When you get involved in theatre as a practitioner, you bare your soul. You see others bearing their souls. You bond with people. You make lifelong relationships with people in theatre. I see my good friends pass away one by one, but those memories linger. ”Among the man people he has worked with are the late Wilbert Holder, Stanley Marshall and Errol Jones. Also sharing the stage with him were Albert La Veau, Helen Camps, Wendell Manwarren, Roger Roberts, Noel Blandin and many others. Apart from his pursuits in the theatre, Scott was a freelance sales/marketing consultant and has been in business management for over 45 years. He operated his own company Scott’s Trading Limited for 21 years. His last substantive position was chairman of a medium-sized electronics and appliance company. He credited his success over the years to his fervent passion for delivering excellent customer service. Scott served as a director on several boards including CTC Electronics, Trinidad Theatre Workshop, Junior Achievement of T&T, and Rebirth House. He was also chairman of Hololo Club Investments Ltd — an investment company formed 22 years ago.

[sexypinkon]

Actress Lena Horne poses for a painting by fellow actor and artist Geoffrey Holder.

From the Papers of Gail Lumet Buckley, 1886-2014 (currently in processing).http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/99153684315803941/catalog

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                                    S   E    X    Y    P   I    N    K

                                          REST IN PEACE

[sexypinkon]

                                        S   E   X    Y    P   I   N   K

                                    B  E   R   E   A   V   E  M   E   N   T

                              Bahamian American Actor Sidney Poitier

[sexypinkon]

~Sexypink~ Remembering Raymond Choo Kong on the anniversary of his murder one year ago.

[sexypinkon]

~Sexypink~ From the Facebook page of Dominic Kalipersad.

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Trinidad is a special place for American actress Frances McDormand who won the Best Actress Oscar award for her role in “Nomadland” on Sunday night.Her first-ever professional role was in a play by Derek Walcott, The Last Carnival, staged at the Government Training College in Port-of-Spain in 1984.

She collaborated with Walcott on the production just after graduating from Yale Graduate School.

She played Agatha Willett, a 25-year-old working-class English governess who comes to work for the French Creole De la Fontaine family. In the second act, which is set two decades later, she played Clodia, the daughter of the family.

McDormand was one of two American actors brought to Trinidad by Walcott to appear in the first production on the play. 

Walcott also directed Cotter Smith (Mindhunter) in the play.https://bombmagazine.org/articles/frances-mcdormand/...McDormand is now the recipient of three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award, one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting”.

[sexypinkon]

OMG Interview Raymond Choo Kong

From the Facebook page of Dominic Kalipersad

Raymond Choo Kong was an award winning producer, director, and actor in Trinidad and Tobago theatre for some 40 years.

He staged many plays through his theatre production company Raymond Choo Kong Productions, and received18 Cacique Awards, making him the holder of the most Cacique Awards.

He directed a number of musicals such as ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘The King and I’, and ‘Mahalia: A Gospel Musical’, for First Instinct and JCS Entertainment.

Choo Kong also worked on projects in The Prime Minister's Best Village Trophy Competition, Trinidad Theatre Workshop with Dereck Walcott, films, commercials, and Carnival band launches etc.

He wrapped up his last pro­duc­tion, Choose Your Part­ner Wise­ly, at the end of June at Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege.

His com­pa­ny was due to hold a work­shop in San Fernando this week­end.

Choo Kong was found dead at his home in Arima this afternoon.

According to media reports, the body bore gunshot wounds.

[sexypinkon]

US Trailer (2019)

Don't miss Trinidad and Tobago born Winston Duke in a new nightmare, Us. From the mind of Academy Award-winner Jordan Peele comes "the best horror film of all time". US, coming to Trinidad and Tobago cinemas on March 27.

[sexypinkon]

Isaac Mendes Belisario (1795-1849)

Isaac Mendes Belisario was the first documented Jamaican-born artist. He was active in Kingston around Emancipation and his work, in paint and in print, provides a rich document of life in Jamaica, seen from the perspective of the Sephardic merchant class to which he belonged. Belisario’s work is well represented in the NGJ Collection and on permanent view in our historical galleries. The following overview of his life and work is adapted from the catalogue of “Isaac Mendes Belisario: Art & Emancipation in Jamaica” (2008).

I.M. Belisario, Cocoa Walk Estate (c1840), Collection: National Gallery of Jamaica

Biography

Isaac Mendes Belisario was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1795 into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish or Portuguese origin. The family had close ties to the Sephardic community in London. His grandfather, Isaac Mendes Belisario, after whom he was named, taught children at the Bevis Marks synagogue in London. The older Isaac’s son Abraham was sent to Jamaica in 1786 to work for Alexandre Lindo, a wealthy merchant, plantation owner, and slave factor. Five years later Abraham married Alexandre’s daughter Esther, and in 1803 Abraham, Esther and their six children – the younger Isaac, Caroline, Lydia, Hannah, Rose and Maria – moved to London.

Belisario trained as an artist under Robert Hills, the landscape watercolourist and drawing master. He exhibited landscapes between 1815 and 1818 but put aside his artistic endeavours in the 1820s, when he worked as a stockbroker. In 1831 Belisario showed a portrait at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Belisario returned to Kingston in about 1832 and remained there for at least fifteen years.  The island had a significant Jewish population in the 1830s, concentrated in Kingston and Spanish Town, and the majority worked in retailing, merchandising, and wholesaling. Belisario may have felt encouraged to return by the Jamaica Assembly’s passing in 1831 of the Jewish Emancipation Act, which gave Jamaican Jews full civil liberties at a time when the rights of Jews in Britain were still being negotiated.

The few works that survive from this period in Belisario’s career show him to have been a versatile artist, capable of working in different media and in a range of genres to cater to his clientele’s demands. In addition to his portrait practice, which was based oat 21 King Street, in downtown Kingston, Belisario painted estate portraits in oils and collaborated with the French printmaker Adolphe Duperly on various print projects. In 1837-1838 Belisario produced his best-known work, Sketches of Character, a series of twelve handcoloured lithographs, which may reflect his desire to produce work of wider appeal and more lasting significance.

The Jamaica to which Belisario returned was on the eve of making its troubled transition from apprenticeship to full emancipation, and his works provide a fascinating portrait of a colony undergoing – and resisting – radical transformation. He did not publicize his personal views, however, perhaps out of concern not to alienate his clients and community.

Belisario’s last documented Kingston work is a lithograph of 1846, and he died in London in 1849.

I.M. Belisario, Sketches of Character: French Set Girls (1837-38), Collection: The Hon. Maurice Facey and Mrs. Facey (On extended loan to the NGJ)

Sketches of Character

In September 1837, Belisario published the first part of a series of lithographic prints entitled Sketches of Character, In Illustration of the Habits, Occupation, and Costume of the Negro Population in the Island of Jamaica. The first part consisted of four hand-coloured lithographs accompanied by an extensive explanatory text, known as letterpress. The series was sold by subscription, and Belisario printed a list of subscribers with the first part. Two more parts followed over the next few months, but despite Belisario’s intention that there should be twelve parts in all, he abandoned the series after the third part of was issued in 1838, likely having exhausted either his financial or creative resources, or both.

Of the twelve published plates, seven are images of figures from the masquerades that the formerly enslaved performed in Jamaica during the annual Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and four depict examples of the different occupations frequently seen in the streets of Kingston. Belisario described these two groups of images as the “Christmas Amusements” and the “Cries of Kingston.” Belisario’s prints were the first visual representations both of the masquerades and of Jamaican occupational types, and Sketches of Character was a landmark event for both Jamaican and British print publishing.

The Christmas Amusements depict three separate, though overlapping, performance forms: the Sets, the Actor Boys, and Jonkonnu (usually referred to by whites during the colonial period in its anglicized form of John Canoe). Originating in African masquerade and religious practice, these forms underwent a process of creolization, incorporating elements of European theater and masquerade imported to Jamaica by immigrants. Masquerade was a controlled outlet for the enslaved, who endured an everyday existence of grinding monotony and brutality. The notion of the “world turned upside down,” parody, and masking are central to masquerade, raising troubling questions regarding social hierarchies, power relations, and personal identity, and the holiday period was a time of anxiety for planters and ruling elites, who feared that carnival would spill over into violence and revolt. There were, in fact, active efforts to suppress Jonkonnu in the post-emancipation period and it is only in the mid 20th century that this masquerade tradition was recognized as a legitimate part of Jamaica’s cultural heritage.

The series has had an important legacy. Belisario’s images were models for the revival of Jonkonnu in the 1950s, and they also played a role in the creation of a new national identity in the post-independence era.

I.M. Belisario, Skethces of Character: Jaw-Bone or House John-Canoe (1837-1838), Collection: The Hon. Maurice Facey and Mrs. Facey (On extended loan to the NGJ)

Belisario as a Landscape Painter

Belisario is remembered mainly as a watercolourist and lithographer, but he was also active as a landscape painter in oils whose works chronicle Jamaican plantation life and labour at a moment of profound transformation. He was perhaps the last exponent of the picturesque estate landscape in Jamaica.

A group of oil paintings and a related watercolour, all depicting estates belonging to the Marquess of Sligo (then Governor of Jamaica), explores the question of labour on the plantation in the transition from apprenticeship to freedom. They might specifically represent the estates under the management of Alexandre Bravo, who took them over as a manager in 1838.

Belisario’s paintings seem to offer an idyllic vision of free labour willingly performed in an open market, resulting in economic prosperity and social calm – the desired outcome of Sligo’s reforms. Other sources however record that the years after full emancipation saw the collapse of sugar production and agriculture on marginal lands such as Sligo’s plantations at Cocoa Walk and Kelly’s Estate. Only with the breaking up of the estates in a “ruinate” condition did the former apprentices finally have a chance to purchase and cultivate their own land.

Bibliography

Barringer, Tim, Gillian Forrester, and Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz, eds. Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art & Yale University Press, 2007.

Boxer, David et al. Isaac Mendes Belisario: Art & Emancipation in Jamaica. Kingston: National Gallery of Jamaica, 2008.

Ranston, Jackie. Belisario: Sketches of Character. Kingston: Mill Press, 2008.

Sexypink addendum: The work of this Artist has always interested me, along with the work of Cazabon, for its period.