Since this Sunday 24 January, the digital platform Spektak offers free the Festival de Gwoup a Po, Kouté Pou Tann’ a musical event that in normal times took place on stage during the carnival of Guadeloupe in the town of Port-Louis.
The Spektak platform wanted to make its contribution at this very special time when the Carnival of Guadeloupe and so many others across the Caribbean and the world have been cancelled to avoid large crowds and contain the spread of Covid-19. Its director, Guadeloupean filmmaker and producer, Thierry Galvani, assisted by the artistic and musical director of the structure, musician Rudy Lewis, have teamed up with Jean-Marie Zadigue, the founder of the Festival de Gwoup a Po (Skin Group Festival) which has been held every year since 2014 in the town of Port-Louis. Deprived of stages and streets to express themselves, these carnival bands have therefore enthusiastically accepted to perform some of their songs in front of the cameras of the Caribbean platform.
The main thing to stress is that the Spektak.tv platform offers the Festival de Gwoup a Po free of charge. Indeed, the spectator, in Guadeloupe, Martinique, another Caribbean island or anywhere else in the world, will pay absolutely nothing to attend this show, which has been divided into two parts. The first part was put online this Sunday, January 24 around 11:30 am and features performances of four groups : Moun Ki Moun (MKM) from Pointe-à-Pitre, who usually parade in the streets with about 850 carnival-goers, on stage there will be about twenty of them ; Mouvman Kiltirèl Rasin (MKR) born in 1999, from Baie-Mahault ; Yomen’m created in 2003, from Saint-François ; Kozéika composed only of women. The second part, available in the early afternoon, shows three other groups : Restan-La from Gosier ; Mas A Wobè from Pointe-à-Pitre composed largely of seniors ; Klé La from Les Abymes.
If you like shimmering colours, costumes and props made from recycled materials and the sound of the drum covered with a goatskin (hence the name “skin group”), you will enjoy the show. All you have to do is log on to the Spektak.tv platform and register a password.
We know it and we live it : the global Covid-19 epidemic has changed a lot things in all sectors. Digital technology has made a muscular entrance into culture with, for example, the launch of platforms around the world to allow artists to continue to practice their art and earn a living since large gatherings of people are still forbidden and no one knows exactly when they will be allowed again.
In Guadeloupe, the Spektak platform (in Creole and “Show” in English) was launched on July 31, 2020. Its founder hopes that this new distribution space on the internet will become a showcase displaying the richness of culture in our Guadeloupean archipelago but also that of the whole Caribbean to the whole world, and it will bring a new offer to internet users, different from that of global giants, Amazon or Netflix. Concerts by artists and bands on Spektak can be viewed for a cost of 2.00€.
Photos: Screen Shot “Festival de Gwoup a Po” – Spektak
