Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts
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Brian Heap
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BA (Hons.), PGCE (Leeds), B.Phil. Drama in Education and Therapy (Newcastle) Head/Senior Lecturer in Drama, PSCCA, UWI, Mona.
uring his tenure at the UWI Mr. Heap has introduced significant new programmes in Drama and Theatre to the Mona Campus, and has coordinated Curriculum Development in these disciplines at both at the National and Regional levels. Among his numerous achievements in this area is the writing of the R.O.S.E. Drama Curriculum, part of the World Bank/Ministry of Education, Reform of Secondary Education in Jamaica. In addition he has developed Drama curriculum for the Joint Board of Teacher Education for use in Teacher Training institutions throughout the Region. He is a recipient of the Silver Musgrave Medal awarded to him by the Institute of Jamaica for Outstanding Merit in the Field of Drama Education, in which he has distinguished himself, throughout his long teaching career in Jamaica. Mr. Heap’s work with the techniques of Applied Theatre in the area of HIV/AIDS education, has taken him to Zambia and the Eastern Caribbean, where he has conducted highly acclaimed training workshops for Save the Children (Sweden and South Africa) and participated in the creative development of public awareness campaigns in a wide range of media for the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation (CFPA)
“The Actor” a sculpture by Winston Patrick which adorns the Centre’s front steps is illuminated during the PSCCA’s annual “Guerilla Lighting” workshop. A showcase of the talents of our technical team, plying their craft in a variety of unusual locations.
In addition, Mr. Heap has significantly raised the international research profile of the UWI in Drama and Theatre, not only through his collaboration with overseas colleagues on numerous books, articles and other publications but also with his winning bid to host the Fifth International Drama in Education Research Institute (IDIERI) at Mona, Jamaica in 2006, for which he was both Convener and Conference Director. As a direct result of this event, the University of the West Indies has been invited to participate in an ongoing international study on Creativity. Mr. Heap also serves as one of the International Adjudicators for the Central Adjudication of Drama in English in the Singapore Youth Festival. His joint publication with Pamela Bowell, Planning Process Drama (2001) is required reading in Drama/Theatre and Education departments in colleges and universities worldwide, and an expanded second edition is scheduled for publication in 2012.
The Creative Arts in the Academy Brian Heap, Senior Lecturer, Head, PSCCA
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he Creative Arts have always played a central role in the academic life of any university worthy of its name. University campuses worldwide have traditionally functioned as sites of excellence in music, dance and theatre, and many indeed, are the trustees of collections of notable and valuable works of art. The Mona campus of the University of the West Indies is no exception in this respect. Significant works including sculptures, paintings, murals, and photographs are to be found across the length and breadth of the university campus, in the Library, in the Chapel, in the Administrative buildings, on faculty facades, in quadrangles and meeting rooms. Edna Manley, Christopher Gonzalez, Valerie Bloomfield, Denise Forbes, Winston Patrick, Ras Dizzy, Philip Supersad, and Clinton Hutton are just a few of the artists represented in the works on display. Yet frequently they are passed by with hardly a second glance, so familiar, so ‘right’ and reassuring is their presence in the university landscape. Much the same can be said for the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, it remains largely unacknowledged as the ‘soul’ of the campus because it continues to serve the university and wider community so unobtrusively. Yet since its inception in 1968, first serving the University of the West Indies in its entirety and subsequently turning its focus on Mona, it has established a reputation as a centre of national and international excellence for Caribbean creative expression and scholarship. There are still those critics even within university circles who question the validity of including the creative arts within the academy, and who resist any notion of alternative approaches to inquiry other than rigid scientific method. Even the enormous artistic legacy of a ‘giant’ like the late Professor R. M. Nettleford, who clearly demonstrated throughout his career as a world class choreographer that dance could be a serious part of academic discourse, has failed to persuade these critics otherwise. Nevertheless, creative artists continue to fulfill the dual aspect of their role as reflective practitioners, whose main purpose is to disturb any complacency in audiences by challenging them through exposure to alternative perspectives on a range of subjects, incidents, jealously guarded belief systems, styles and forms. The aesthetic subjects are no longer confined to the margins of academic life, but impact daily on the lives of not only those who participate directly in the creation of art, but who also support and appreciate their creative endeavours. Similarly, aesthetics in the academy should not merely be regarded as a branch of philosophy, but recognized as an essential organizing principle of social life. As Professor Nettleford wrote:Children growing up in untidy, undisciplined and disorderly environs cannot hope to be clear-thinking, disciplined and orderly. And admirers of Marcus Garvey should again read his sayings to appreciate that the world he envisaged for the black man was not one of ‘ragamuffins’, filth and grime. Tom Mboya, a former Kenyan leader, once told the world that Africa’s poverty (expressed in recycled motor-tyre sandals and seminudity) should not be mistaken for its culture…..Many of our people will have to be de-socialized out of their negative perceptions about order and gentleness or compassion and tenderness being ‘against the roots’ while violence, aggression and terror spell manliness and courage. (Jamaica in Independence, 1989) ❍
-Photograph by Ryan Esson
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