Half Way Tree Goes LIVE

Kingston, Jamaica: Half Way Tree Live – Bringing Culture to the Capital, promises the delivery of premium cultural content to the Jamaican masses through its five highly developed cultural spaces. These spaces are Pickney Pen for the children, The Food Market, The Craft Market, the amateur stage One Side and, the aptly named main stage, Cotton Tree Theatre. The event is being held through collaboration with The National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), Nanook Enterprises Limited and The Wright Agency. The venture is to promote the use of our national urban spaces to the ultimate fiscal and cultural benefit of the Jamaican society. The project entitled Capitalising on Culture in Parks & Gardens, kicks off with HALF WAY TREE LIVE, which will be held at the Nelson Mandela Park and Amphitheatre in the middle of Half Way Tree from Monday, December 13 to Sunday, December 19, 2010. This December is the inaugural staging of the weeklong event, which is scheduled to happen once every quarter. The event will be officially launched on Monday, December 6, 2010.

The Nelson Mandela Park is at present one of the most under-utilised spaces in Kingston, mainly because of the stigma attached both locally and internationally about it being a very unsafe place. The NSWMA, has beautifully maintained and recently renovated the park and through the new Capitalising on Culture in Parks & Gardens Project, this venue and others will be used to stage dance, theatre, music, comedy and all other displays of rich Jamaican culture. It is through the Half Way Tree LIVE product and spaces that the organizers will realize their primary goal of providing quality, wholesome and authentically Jamaican cultural entertainment with dance, drama, music, comedy, food, craft and talent in general. “Another goal of this venture is to provide an innovative platform from which our many forms of cultural expression can be showcased to all audiences, this project is not just geared at local audiences but international audiences as well” said Joan Webley, Nanook Enterprises”.

Half Way Tree LIVE will feature performances by the Poetry Society of Jamaica, Manifesto Jamaica, Area Youth Foundation, students from Edna Manley, Root Cause’s “Seh Supm” and members of JARIA. The project is being brought to you in association with The Kingston & St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC), JAMPRO, LIME, Grace Foods Ltd, The Jamaica Business Development Centre (JBDC), The RJR Group of Companies among others.