By Toni Nicholas

Adrian Augier, director of The St Lucia Arts Festival Company can be counted on to be as congenial as possible with his words. While some of us in the audience at Word Alive 4 were bitterly commenting on the lack of serious institutional support for the arts (including the particular event) by any administration, Augier softened it up a bit in the pre-amble to his poem.

He quipped something about the tourism dollar not filtering to arts programs. But Augier should take heart, because even the great Derek Walcott is having a hard time getting funding for a million dollar EC project; the transformation of the famous play "Ti Jean and his Brothers" into an international film project. But that’s another story, for another issue of the STAR.

Word Alive has been held here for four consecutive years with little sponsorship and funding whilst the audience has been growing significantly. For the past three years, 1st National Bank has come on board and this year contributed EC$20,000 for the staging of the event.

Adrian Augier’s St Lucia Arts Festival Company staged the successful "Word Alive 4" at Samaans Park last Saturday. Lest we be found guilty of using the word "success" arbitrarily, let us qualify. The event got off to an on-time start and featured nine young performers with the majority delivering brilliant pieces.

Then there were the guest performers, including Adrian Augier as well as Nnkrumah Lucien, Afro Lyrix, Ken Hardy and Kendel Hyppolyte who were all superb. The use of music to accompany the spoken word by Ken Hardy and Afro Lyrix, as well as their interaction with the audience made them particularly outstanding. And the appreciative crowd did not hold back on their applause.

To top it all off, there were the thought provoking pieces by another special guest, storyteller Amina Blackwood Meeks of Jamaica. Meeks brought together imagery of Africa and the West Indies to tell her stories and had her audience in rapt attention throughout. But the host, MC Pringles and Nicole David must also be commended, for complimenting each other on the night and allowing the show to flow and breathe.

"Word Alive 4" which highlights performance poetry with music, featured nine emerging and aspiring performers engaging in keen competition for the top prize on the night. The nine were Shaela, Stan Bishop, Martha Blanchard, Ras Elijah, Stevaco, Claudia Monlouis, Amin Flood, Ashanti Prescot and Ras Isley. The pieces were quite varied; from Stevaco’s creole oratory to Amin Flood’s contemporary "Love Is" which he unwrapped to Beyonce’s Irreplaceable, attention seem to have been paid to words and presence.

In the end Shaela who is also one half of Afro Lyrix got the judges’ nod with her piece "Let It Grow" for which she received EC$3,000. The young poet later told the STAR that this was a piece she started writing last November as a personal statement. "I always wanted to perform but I wasn’t very confident at first. So I started to write this poem expressing, those feelings. For the competition I finished it as a testimony and to offer others like myself some encouragement," said Shaela.

The young performer says she intends to continue writing and performing with Afro Lyrix, a group which has been together for 11 months now and has been regular performers at Mojitos. The second place prize went to Amin Flood an employee of Sandals Regency, with third place going to Stevaco who is from the Soufriere Action Theatre.

In summing up the event Adrian Augier says that he was satisfied with the outcome and says that it speaks to the fact that there is room for varied entertainment, which exposes the wealth of St Lucian talent. So will there be Word Alive 5. "You can bet there will be," Augier says, smiling.