By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE EXQUISITE storytelling and music of Atiba wrapped up Redbones the Blues Café contemporary literature season last Wednesday.
After poets Ishion and Marsha Hall, Atiba brought the final month-end reading before the annual Redbones Literary Awards in November to a thrilling end, using various musical instruments to accompany himself.
His instruments brought out the dancer in Tioma, who twice stepped and undulated to the music coming from the stage at the Braemar Avenue, New Kingston, restaurant and evening spot.
CONSCIOUS PATH
Ishion started off the evening celebrating feminine beauty, with Obese, The Inevitable Lover and Daisy. He was followed by Marsha Hall, who took the evening along the conscious path, with Black Man and The Lost Cause.
Atiba took the stage with a magic bag, which he dipped into from time to time to remove instruments such as flutes to accompany his stories, direct from Africa. His voice, which spoke, sang and soothed as required, was another voice all in itself, while his body language, topped off by an expressive face, was like the running music video of the performance.
Atiba opened with The Wind Song, a traditional flute song from Nigeria, followed by Shenanio.
Tioma's dancing came in on Mandjeni, which was followed by Don't Lose Control, in which Atiba, accompanying himself on percussion as he did for a great deal of his pieces, sang as much as he spoke.
The hands that beat gently the drum, cradled a small instrument that was plucked melodically with the fingers, and the eyes that looked steadily ahead as he spoke about the purpose of his art twinkled and rolled as Atiba did the Stanza Story. In this he related his trip from village to village starting with his stanza, which was then taken from him by the villagers and various items, each taken and replaced by something else, passing through his hands along his journey.
Until he was right back where he began, happy with his stanza.
Tioma joined the party again for The King's Lambon, in which Atiba wove his words together with the traditional poem.
HUMOROUS TURN
In The Mist followed and the presentation took another humorous turn with the tale of Emmylou and the Conjo Woman in which Emmylou was lucky enough to be granted three wishes of anything that she wished. She kept asking for intelligence, a wish that was constantly deferred for something else, until finally Miss Olivia (the Conjo Woman) said: 'Honey, I can't give you what you already got.'
Atiba ended on a note of self-affirmation, utilising his percussion as he intoned that 'we are sons of the sun/daughters of the moon.../even silence respects us'. A very good presentation was met with the appropriate applause from the audience.
Evon Williams of Redbones the Blues Café told The Gleaner that on the last Wednesday in November, 12 poets will be coming together for the establishment's annual literary awards. There will be five categories and the poets will be given about 12 minutes each to present their material to the judges, after which the awards will be handed out.
