At the forefront of yet another thriving new festival, is Mrs. Collette Jones-Chin, Director of the Drama Company “Stages”, and an accomplished teacher of Art at the Omololu School.
In recent times, Anguilla’s cultural platform has designated several brands of “festivals” for the enjoyment of our own people, as well as for the entertainment of the tourists who grace our shores. From Festival Del Mar, to Welches Fest and West Fest, to Lit Fest and Summer Festival, plus the occasional Valley Street Festivals — festivals loom large with cultural fervor and a certain attraction that causes our people to want more for national social/cultural past times.
Not surprising, though, there is now another festival called Drama Fest. Drama Fest, on its own merits, finds itself in a befitting slot on the stage of our island’s culture. As such, it has encompassed a wide scope of interest, especially among our island’s youth.
Mrs. Collette Jones-Chin heads the operations of the new, developing Drama Fest. She is one versed in theatrical performances, and has worked for many years in the arts and drama industry. She was born in Guyana and, as a young child back in the era of the 1970s, she was exposed to a natural love for the arts and culture.
When asked to share some of her Guyanese roots, Mrs. Jones- Chin jovially replied: “I consider myself a nomad by nature. My roots stem from a mixture of cultures from different areas around the world. My mother’s mother was from Portugal. She left Portugal and went to Guyana to start business. There, she met with my grandfather who was from St. Vincent with Indian ancestry. My mother, therefore, was born in Guyana of Portuguese and Vincentian parentage. Then my mother met my father whose mother was from Guyana, and whose father was from Barbados. Hence, here am I — born in Guyana out of a mixture of heritages.”
Mrs. Jones-Chin was asked how she got started in what has turned out to be a rewarding career. She answered forthwith: “There is no doubt about it. I was born with a gift to be an artist. As I grew up, I wanted to be travelling — to be seeing new places, new things, and new people — just to inspire my artistic skills.
“I am a visual artist, and I have had a natural passion for art since I was a child. As a child, my parents noticed this gift in me, and helped me to promote it. My grandmother, in particular, nurtured me into developing my artistic capabilities, while instilling in me the need to be balanced academically.
“Granny forced me, as it were, to be excellent in the academics, and at the same time to be good at the arts. Therefore, I became extremely balanced. I began to hone this kind of balance between the academics and the arts since I was a tender age. Even then, I knew that I wanted to pursue a professional career in visual arts so, at the age of 16, I enrolled in Guyana’s Burrowes School of Art.”
Mrs. Jones-Chin’s interest in the arts merged with a vivid, innate interest in drama and theatrical studies. She tells how she was able to pursue her interests in theatrical skills: “There had always been a theatre guild in Guyana where only the elite could have studied. I was not rich, and I dare say I was not white. So, although I wished to study drama, my thoughts told me that I had to be “light skinned” and I had to have money to be a student there.
“Anyway, that did not prevent me from following my dream. At the age of 17, I was bold and determined enough to try. So I went into a class at the theater school one day, just to observe one of the workshop sessions. After looking at them, I told myself, ‘Wow…I want to be on stage, ‘cause I know I am good.’ When I got a chance, I asked the teacher who was directing: ‘How does one join this drama group?’ In a staunch English tone, he told me that I must have a recommendation from a professional if I desire to join. He asked me which school I currently attended. I told him I am enrolled at Burrowes School of Art. He quickly said, ‘Oh! My friend is the administrator there — Miss Jones’. I told him, I am Miss Jones too. He gave a nod of approval and said, ‘Well, see if Miss Jones would recommend you’.
“Those words fired a spark of hope within me, and I went directly to seek out Miss Jones whom I did not really know before – seeing it was my first year at the art school. I asked her if she would be willing to recommend me as a student for the theatre guild. She said, ‘Sure, cause I perceive you are dramatic as well as being artistic.’
“Miss Jones wrote my recommendation to the drama school director. I was called in for an audition in which I was required to read the Bible with its ‘hither’ and ‘thither’, ‘thou’ and ‘thee’. I was successful in the audition and was eventually enrolled in the Theatre Guild of Guyana.”
Mrs. Jones-Chin would attend arts school by day and drama school by night. She tells of the kind of “status” she felt at these schools: “Guyana is racially oriented,” she said. “I am mixed, so I was not considered as a regular black teen. At the drama school, especially, the lighter-skin students there saw me as a new face among them with curly long hair and slim Indian looking features. So they thought this was a different kind of black girl. There were other ‘pure black’ girls who applied to be enrolled, but were not successful.
“That had set a stigma on the school, though, as an elitist drama school. So here was I, this little dark-skinned girl, among these light-skinned so-called elites with well-to-do backgrounds. At first I had like it ‘cause I was young. Even back at the art school, I was given more opportunities than the regular black girls, and, at the time, I never knew how racially detrimental that was to society. But, as a youth, I liked it. It pushed me forward; it propelled me. So, as a youngster, I enjoyed the elite kind of status.”
Notwithstanding, she tells of a racial experience she encountered at the drama school: “A Portuguese drama director once cast me in a play as the lead. This did not please the female producer who told the director that I should not be given the lead role because I was just a poor black girl from the ghetto. He sternly protested and told her that if he could not give me the lead role, which he knew I was well capable of, then he would resign as director….So the show went on”.
On the other hand, Mrs. Jones-Chin then gave details of a remarkable opportunity that opened up to her to travel abroad to represent her country in Canada: “While I was preparing to finish art school, there was an ad that came out for cultural ambassadors to go to Canada to represent Guyana.
“I learned of the scheme when 398 students from tertiary institutions all across Guyana had already applied to take part. I said to myself, well it does not make sense for me to apply because they only needed two ambassadors. However, in the interim, my principal called me one day to say that she had gotten an invitation from Canadian Crossroads International for students to participate in an ambassador program. She encouraged me to apply, along with one young man from the school.
“After some time, we were sent off to the interview with so many other students from all over Guyana. It happened so that, by the way I answered the questions, I impressed the interviewers immensely. They couldn’t help but express it. One of them told another, ‘I like this girl’. In the end, I, out of so many students, was selected, along with another female student, to represent Guyana in Canada through the Canada Crossroads International program.
“So we were trained with regard to knowing as much as we can know about Guyana, so that we could sell our country to Canada, while doing some teaching there. But, incidentally, a government official called to inform the school that due to budgetary constraints the government could not afford to send two representatives to Canada. Only one was able to go, and that one turned out to be me.
“I was therefore labeled as the Cultural Ambassador of Guyana in Canada. I told myself this is it. I am going to properly set the stage for my life now. I spent the four months of the program in New Brunswick working with mentally challenged people. There, I used art as a therapy for the mentally impaired. Now I am a full arts therapist.”
Mrs. Jones-Chin stated that she had always had big dreams. She could not see herself staying in Guyana: “I had always envisioned myself launching out as an ambassador of some sort for my country,” she reflected. “That was my dream. Philanthropy was always in my blood. I had always wanted to share what I know and to give back to my people.”
It was for that reason that Mrs. Jones-Chin is now in Anguilla. She reflects: “I started travelling around the world, going into every little island I could find just to enjoy cultural differences while teaching. It was in St. Vincent that I met my husband, Cecil. He too is Guyanese but was living in St. Vincent. We were very successful there. My husband was into sports and was the first licensed FIBA referee in the Eastern Caribbean, while I was engaged in art programs all across the country. We got Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves’ attention, and he called us in and arranged for us to become citizens at once. That was such a blessing.”
Zeroing in now on how she came to be in Anguilla, Mrs. Jones-Chin noted: “In St. Vincent, though art is appreciated, it is not lucrative enough for a career. I wanted to work in the field that would be better paying. So, I called my friend Courtney Abel one day in 20__, and I inquired from him how widespread art was in Anguilla. He told me there were many art galleries here and he would research the possibility of us coming to do some work in the field. Not long after, Mr. Abel linked me with Dr. Oluwakemi Linda Banks.
“Through our connection with Dr. Banks, I was able to get a job at the Omololu School. I wrote the Art Curriculum for the school and worked with the institution for four months. As soon as I finished at Omololu, I was hired by the Tourist Board to make carnival costumes. Following that stint, I was hired to teach art at the Albena Lake Hodge Comprehensive School where I worked for four years.”
After teaching at the ALHCS, Mrs. Jones-Chin got more involved in drama and directed the Vagina Monolouges. She left Anguilla for Guyana in 2010 and returned in 2016 to teach art again at the Omololu School where she now works. Simultaneously, she is engaged in the teaching of drama, and has established the theatre company “Stages” which is developing at a remarkable pace. It is through this platform that Mrs. Jones-Chin recently launched the newest festival, AXM Drama Festival, which collaborated with a St. Maarten drama company, Conscious Lyrics Foundation, under the directorship of Mr. Shujah Relph.
Mrs. Jones Chin said finally: “We are now looking forward to CARIFESTA in August, when we will be featuring our signature play, ‘Virtue’. It is a play that was written out of a Guyanese context, for a Guyanese audience, portraying real-life Guyana, but it neatly fits in an Anguillian context as well. So we are excited about staging it as our CARIFESTA feature this year.”
