Americas

[Visited: July 2001]

We happened to arrive on the beautiful island of Tobago just when the Heritage Festival took place - it lasts two weeks in the month of July. A festival to commemorate the African origins of the population, and very accessible also to outsiders. The festivities include very different events: musical performances, games, sports, pirogue (typical African boats made of tree trunks) competitions, etc. We opted to go to The Drum Beats On, a musical performance in Roxborough.
The festivities turned out to be African in many respects. After some time I felt as if I were in Africa. People stood up in the audience and swinged to the rhythms of the music. A considerable part of the competitors (there were different categories in which groups could win prizes) did not show up at all. And this, and other, shortcomings were handled with a lot of humour by the female presentator of the evening. For instance, when the announced "Drummers of Tomorrow" group did not show up, she said: "Hopefully they did not mistake the date and show up tomorrow".
But the main attraction of the evening was of course the performance on stage. Lively drum music, with sensual swingers on stage were convincingly African. The most successful women were those who gave a show with their posterior toward the public. Overall, there was a lot of laughing everywhere, on as well as off-stage. The heritage of the Tobagonian people was successfully established!

Around the World in 80 Clicks

Personal travel impressions both in words and images from Tobago Heritage Festival (Trinidad & Tobago). Clicking on the pictures enlarges them and enables you to send the picture as a free e-card or download it for personal use, for instance, on your weblog. Or click on the map above to visit more places close to Tobago Heritage Festival.
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