Issue 123 (September/October 2013)

EMBARK: Events around the Caribbean in September and October • Discover a new crop of Jamaican artists, experience J’Ouvert Brooklyn style, and jam to Dominica’s World Creole Music Festival • Cayman-based Admas Mahdere brings Ethiopian textures to the Caribbean • The West Indies women’s cricket team is on the rise • Travel tips from Vincentian artist and ARC magazine editor Holly Bynoe • This month’s reading picks • Recent tunes to get your feet tapping • Franka Philip remembers the late Mott Green and his vision for Grenadian chocolate • IMMERSE: Chutney soca’s rise to mainstream popularity in Trinidad began in the 1990s, and today’s artistes are hits of the Carnival season and the year-round concert curcuit. Photographer Mark Lyndersay’s portraits capture two generations of chutney soca stars, while writer Essiba Small explains how the sound has evolved over the decades • Little known outside Barbados, Landship is a unique performance tradition — drawing on naval lore — with deep community roots. As Landship marks its hundred and fiftieth anniversary, Marcia Burrowes investigates how the movement has responded to changing times • Drawing on their love of animals and willingness to work on a miniscule budget, the short films of Trinidadians Christopher and Leizelle Guinness have become online sensations. Georgia Popplewell learns how they got started, and where they’re heading next • Bahamian playwright Nicolette Bethel, co-founder of the Shakespeare in Paradise theatre festival, on the unpredictable thrill of live performance and the importance of preserving tradition — as told to Nicholas Laughlin • Where would Jamaican music be without the genius of its backup musicians? Garry Steckles pays tribute to these stage and studio veterans • ARRIVE: In the eighteenth century, the “Golden Rock” was a bustling port. Today, sleepy St Eustatius has more historic ruins per square mile than any other Caribbean island. Walter Hellebrand remembers how it went “from boom town to ghost town” • It’s Trinidadian writer Attillah Springer’s first time in Ghana. Why does it feel so familiar? • Squeezed between the Atlantic and the Everglades, Miami may be the biggest Caribbean city that isn’t actually in the Caribbean. Philip Sander explores Miami’s Caribbean pockets • ENGAGE: As part of a pioneering development strategy, Guyana gets US$50 million per year to preserve its vast rainforests. Nazma Muller finds out what it means for long-term economic growth • UWI’s Seismic Research Centre helps keep the Eastern Caribbean safe from earthquakes. Erline Andrews talks to the scientists who monitor the tremors under our feet • James Ferguson recalls the fateful day, five hundred years ago, when the conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa set eyes on the Pacific • The spices of life in Marigot market