By Toni Nicholas- Article Courtesy the St. Lucia Star.

Founded in November  of  2009 Headphunk, an entity which seeks to create a space and voice for artistic expression here, made their debut that same month outside a small cozy café called Charms  in down town Castries.  According to one of the founding members, Shane Cherry, the concept behind Headphunk is to awaken the creative consciousness by creating an activity that is both attractive and engaging to the performers as well as to the audience. “We really wanted to build this on a format where the artistes felt comfortable, felt at home with what they were doing and the people we wanted to come see and hear us were comfortable as well,” Cherry says.

Headphunk was started by Cherry along with Germaine Joseph, Clayton Rhule, Naomi Grandison and Julius Hollenseide who all had an interest in the arts. Their first monthly outing at Charms sought to bring together new and aspiring writers, poets and persons who wanted to express themselves creatively in general, alongside established performers. With a few curious spectators at first, the movement soon grew and one rainy Thursday evening proved that the inside of the café’ was already too cramped. “We were fortunate enough however that last year Adrian Augier opened up the Grotto at Samaan’s Park to us. However hurricane Tomas came and blew that down, so we had to move again,” Cherry told the STAR.

Last month, Headphunk had its first showing for the year at Samaan’s Park, with a large following of enthusiasts. The event once again boasted a variety of performances from spoken work, to poetry with musical accompaniment and a bit of music itself. The guest performer on that night was Adrian Augier.  The communal atmosphere on the night brought together arts enthusiasts, persons from the media, performers, producers and performers who exchanged and engaged on and off stage.  “That’s also part of what we are trying to achieve,” Cherry says when asked about the interactive aspect of Headphunk. “We see this as an opportunity for poets, writers, performers to meet with producers, entertainment managers, so that they can engage them. As a matter of fact it was through Headphunk that a number of performers were selected to perform recently in Senegal.”

The first year of Headphunk was spent on branding the product and creating an awareness and understanding. Now that this has been established the organizers feel that it is time to take the show on the road to various communities around the island soon.

All photos courtesy Clayton Rhule and Headphunk.