Reflective Entry #3
Final Report
Our group project brought together four creative fields, Theatre, Visual Arts, Music, and Dance to explore and honor the cultural heritage of the First Peoples of Trinidad and Tobago. By combining our different talents, we aimed to create a performance that was meaningful, respectful, and rooted in storytelling. Each discipline played a unique role in shaping the final presentation, from the movement of the performers to the visual design, the rhythm of the music, and the direction that guided the narrative. Working together allowed us not only to showcase our individual strengths but also to appreciate how deeply connected the arts truly are. Below, we reflect on how each field contributed to bringing this performance to life.
As theatre students, we used our directing skills to help make the performance moving, even with limited space and time. Wanting to ensure everyone got their time to be in the center. Part of our presentation was ensuring no one took a role in the performance as their own art. We used storytelling and had narrators, so we helped the narrators to tell the story with confidence and believability in them. Ensuring they weren’t just reading for reading, they needed to emphasize.
As visual arts students, our contribution to the group performance focused on creating the headpieces worn by the actors in the play. Our field was showcased most clearly during this process. We used red as the base color, reflecting its importance in traditional First Peoples’ headpieces, and layered feathers in a variety of colors to add texture and meaning. We helped with designing, painting, cutting, and assembling each piece, carefully adding details like feathers and gems to bring the headpieces to life and support the overall theme of our performance.
As music students, it was ensured that musical elements common to the First People’s descendants, such as the rhythms, were incorporated into the group project presentation. Acknowledging the similarities and connection between the traditional music and the modern music of Trinidad and Tobago. This presentation has opened our eyes and gave us a new perspective on our country's music. Hearing how certain rhythms and instruments go back to the first people and blended in with the music of the enslaved Africans, the east Indian indentured laborers and many other cultures that influence Trinidad and Tobago, made us realize how truly special our music is.
As dance students, it was important to ensure that dance was never left out, especially as a crucial part of the First Peoples’ culture in the past, present, and future. By acknowledging dance’s deep connection to the First Peoples and to everyday cultural practices in Trinidad and Tobago, we began to understand the immense value that these art forms hold within our national identity. Every objective given to us throughout Caribbean Lab expanded our knowledge of the performing arts and their cultural significance. From putting on presentations, to playing music, to creating routines, each task allowed us to engage physically, intellectually, and creatively with traditions that shaped our region. These experiences not only strengthened our skills as performers but also helped us recognize the responsibility we have in preserving and respecting the cultural legacies that influence the art of dance today.
In conclusion, whether you have recognized it or not, the first people have been very involved in many methods in art used today. Us as creatives must recognize how much the first people are involved in what we do and be very appreciative and acknowledge their presence and influences. From generation to generation, the first people were able to pass down traditions and be incorporated into many sectors of our lives. It is important for us to continue these traditions and pass it onto future generations.
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