The National Performing Arts Centre Will Be Ready For CHOGM

The Chairman of the National CHOGM Task Force, Minister of Foreign Affairs, E.P Chet Greene and the Minister of Social Transformation and Chairman of the National House Company, Rawdon Turner say they are confident that the National Performing Arts Centre will be ready in time for the hosting of the CHOGM Opening Ceremony on November 3.

This after Minister Turner gave his Cabinet colleague a tour of the transformation work being done on the former Deluxe Cinema on High Street which is being transformed into the National Performing Arts Centre. As head of the CHOGM Task Force, Minister Greene requested a tour of the construction site as he wanted to get a first-hand look at the progress of the work and to be reassured that the September timeline for completion was on target.

“I must say that I am pretty impressed and no amount of kudos is enough for Minister Turner and his team for the work that they have done here. I am quite pleased with how they have flipped the internal arrangements and this is the first thing that caught my attention; the way they have maximized the internal space for greater seating capacity. This represents creative thinking; I am further impressed to learn that this is being led by local talent headed by Minister Turner and Project Coordinator, Cynthia Laviscount of National Housing and others. Yes, we have had some non-national support, but this project is being led by and driven by and funded by local tax-payers,” Greene remarked.

The senior minister noted that the transformation of the former Deluxe Cinema into the National Performing Arts Centre represents a major policy decision by the Gaston Browne Administration to invest in the creative talents of the nation’s youth.

“I can imagine this facility, once built out, post-CHOGM and how it will fit into the expansion of the services and the offerings that we have in tourism where cruise ship tourists and others can come to this space and have or local talents performing, thus extending the value of our tourism product,” he stated.

Minister Turner reported that the final bits of cement work are scheduled to be completed by the end of this month and after that will come the finishing; installing seats, the audio-visual system, carpeting and the sound-proofing of the building.

He said on completion the building will seat just under nine hundred persons with a balcony area with two layers of seats.

One of the interesting feature of the transformation is that the building now has two separate roofs.

“We have a layer of galvanise and then on top of that is insulation, perline and then another layer of galvanise. What that does is that it provides very good insulation in terms of sound-proofing. Just imagine that you are in a theatre and it starts to rain, you don’t want the noise of the rain on the galvanise roof to be disturbing the performance taking place inside; we have to control the acoustics. Even the panels that will be used on the inside will also help to reduce external sound. There will also be special carpeting on the floor. This is going to be the most elaborate purpose built facility of its kind, certainly in the Eastern Caribbean,” Minister Turner declared.