DAVID CUFFY

The 2012 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen ti­tle has gone to a To­ba­go-based ca­lyp­son­ian. Fire Em­press (Lor­nette Nedd-Reid) won the 28th edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion, host­ed by the Na­tion­al Women's Ac­tion Com­mit­tee ((NWAC), at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain, on Mon­day night. She was one of two con­tes­tants from the sis­ter-isle and ap­peared in the penul­ti­mate po­si­tion among the 17 con­tes­tants on the play­bill. singing a se­lec­tion, ti­tled Woman, in which she es­poused the virtues of be­ing fe­male, and point­ed to the im­por­tant role women played in all as­pects of life.

Plac­ing sec­ond was re­cent­ly-crowned 2012 Star of To­mor­row Jer­mee­ka Mundy do­ing her com­po­si­tion, Free Yuh­self, while Ter­ri Lyons cap­tured the third spot with an up­tem­po ren­di­tion of her con­tri­bu­tion, ti­tled Cyah Stop Mov­ing. A com­mon fea­ture on the pro­gramme, and one that has grown con­sid­er­ably over the years, was the lib­er­al use of the­atrics and props by the con­tes­tants to com­ple­ment their songs. Their ef­forts, how­ev­er, were over­shad­owed, in most in­stances, by a lack of mi­cro­phone tech­nique that, cou­pled with too loud mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment, made dis­cern­ing their lyrics an al­most fu­tile ex­er­cise. Min­is­ter of The Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston Pe­ters de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress in which he com­pli­ment­ed NWAC for "em­pow­er­ing women by giv­ing them a voice on the ca­lyp­so stage," re­sult­ing in every fe­male ca­lyp­son­ian be­com­ing the voice of every woman.

Awards were pre­sent­ed to ed­u­ca­tor and vet­er­an All Stars pan­nist Denise Her­nan­dez and Chut­ney and Pichaka­ree singer/ra­dio an­nounc­er Asha Ka­machee for their con­tri­bu­tions to the cul­tur­al land­scape. Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment was pro­vid­ed by Earl Knight and Brass Ser­vices. Mak­ing a guest ap­pear­ance was the Re­flex Dance Com­pa­ny with a youth­ful show­case of lim­bo-danc­ing. Oth­er plac­ings to 12th po­si­tion were:

• 4th - So­nia Fran­cis - They Still Around;

• 5th - Leslie Ann El­lis - Moth­ers and Oth­ers;

• 6th - Natasha Nurse - Cur­few Break­ers;

• 7th - Brid­gette Creese (Joy C) - Life's No Dis­as­ter;

• 8th - San­dra For­son (Ifa Sayo) - Free­dom

• 9th - Mar­i­on Pa­ponette - Ar­maged­don War;

• 10th - Vornique Ben­jamin - Count­ing Heads;

• 11th - Joanne Fos­ter - No Re­turn; and

• 12th - Ger­maine Sanchez (Sis­ter Virtue) - Par­ent­ing.