Tobago Heritage Festival,
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Trinidad & Tobago
Tobago Heritage FestivalVisited: July 2001 More pictures of Tobago Heritage Festival:These pictures have been tagged with the following tags (clicking on the tag will take you to all pictures on this site with that tag) american black Central&South America festival music people Tobago Tobago Heritage Festival Trinidad & Tobago yellow woman traditionSearchSearch pages at Traveladventures.org Go directly to:Travel picturesYou can travel the world using images - select your preferred language below: MailinglistIf you want to be updated regularly about new stories and pictures: Google EarthClick your way around Trinidad & Tobago with pictures (needs Google Earth software) Visual GeographyAdvertiseIt is possible to advertise on this travel site. Travel advertisers, ask for more information! SurveyIs there a difference between a traveler and a tourist? View Results Related search: |










We happened to arrive on the beautiful island of Tobago just when the Heritage Festival took place - it lasts two weeks in the month of July. A festival to commemorate the African origins of the population, and very accessible also to outsiders. The festivities include very different events: musical performances, games, sports, pirogue (typical African boats made of tree trunks) competitions, etc. We opted to go to The Drum Beats On, a musical performance in Roxborough.
The festivities turned out to be African in many respects. After some time I felt as if I were in Africa. People stood up in the audience and swinged to the rhythms of the music. A considerable part of the competitors (there were different categories in which groups could win prizes) did not show up at all. And this, and other, shortcomings were handled with a lot of humour by the female presentator of the evening. For instance, when the announced "Drummers of Tomorrow" group did not show up, she said: "Hopefully they did not mistake the date and show up tomorrow".
But the main attraction of the evening was of course the performance on stage. Lively drum music, with sensual swingers on stage were convincingly African. The most successful women were those who gave a show with their posterior toward the public. Overall, there was a lot of laughing everywhere, on as well as off-stage. The heritage of the Tobagonian people was successfully established!


