CARIBBEAN CULTURE

Calypso is a form of syncopated Afro-Caribbean music or song popular in Caribbean countries and wherever people from the Caribbean live. It developed during colonial times, largely as a means of communication among African slaves in the French and British islands of the Caribbean. Much of its development took place in Trinidad, where it became the music of Carnival.
Calypso in Trinidad and Tobago
Calypso and Society

Shanto is a special musical folk idiom that shares features with the calypso. Bill Rogers, a Guyanese, was its greatest exponent and "B.G. Bhagee" was the most well-known shanto.

Bill Rogers sang Shanto at vaudeville shows in British Guiana and his enormous popularity in the 1920s made it posssible for him to become one of the first performers to sign a recording contract with Parlophone Records, a British Gramophone Record Company. A version of B.G. Bhagee was further popularized by Harry Belafonte.

CARIFESTA, the Caribbean Festival of Arts was conceived as a regional festival encompassing all the creative and artistic skills and energies of the member countries of CARICOM, the wider Caribbean, and people of the Caribbean abroad, wherever in the world they now live.

The first Carifesta, called Carifesta ’72, was held in Georgetown, Guyana in 1972. It brought together writers, artists, musicians and other creative people in a variety of performances concentrated during the period Carifesta lasted. The audiences were not only the local people but visitors from other Caribbean countries, from the United States, Europe and other parts of the world. This has been the pattern for succeeding Carifestas.

Carifesta 1	1972	Aug 25 - Sept 15	Guyana
Carifesta 2	1976	July 23 - Aug 2	Jamaica
Carifesta 3	1979		Cuba
Carifesta 4	1981	July 19 - Aug 3	Barbados
Carifesta 5	1992	Aug 22 - 28	Trinidad and Tobago
Carifesta 6	1995	Aug	Trinidad and Tobago
Carifesta 7	2000	August 17 -26	St Kitts and Nevis
Carifesta 8	2003	August 25 – 30	Suriname

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
"One of the world's premiere centers for documenting, preserving, interpreting and celebrating the history and culture of peoples of African descent worldwide." Of value to those interested in "in-depth knowledge about the historical and cultural development of black people" in the Caribbean and other parts of the world.

The Caribbean Writer
an international anthology with a Caribbean focus. Published by the University of the Virgin Islands. Includes poetry, short fiction, personal essays etc.

The Rajkumari Cultural Center
a community organization working to preserve, teach and present the arts and culture of Indo-Caribbean communities from Guyana, Trinidad, and Suriname living in the New York metropolitan and Tri-state area. The Center reflects the ideals of Rajkumari Singh whose life's work in Guyana is being carried on by her daughter, Pritha Singh.

Caribbean Voices
Ken Corsbie's web site. A great cultural resource. Includes Caribbean stories, humor, and poetry.