Sean Nero

It could on­ly be di­vine in­ter­ven­tion that caused storm-like clouds and ac­com­pa­ny­ing rains which per­vad­ed the coun­try on Au­gust 5, to sub­side dur­ing the late af­ter­noon pe­ri­od, mak­ing way for a su­perb open-air com­mu­ni­ty en­ter­tain­ment held at the East­ern Quar­ry Laven­tille pa­n­yard of Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille. That's where a star cast of en­ter­tain­ers signed up for the pro­duc­tion, ap­peared and de­liv­ered an ex­cit­ing mix of artis­tic pre­sen­ta­tions be­fore a large au­di­ence that com­prised res­i­dents and vis­i­tors. Michael Coop­er, chair­man of the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion (LSF), Owen Ser­rette, for­mer pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, Nile­ung Hy­po­lite, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Laven­tille West, and, along with cen­tral and re­gion­al of­fi­cers of Pan Trin­ba­go, were the cul­tur­al en­thu­si­asts.

Thun­der­ous ap­plause was the stamp of ap­proval for the well-thought-out and apt­ly timed cul­tur­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

Leg­endary con­ven­tion­al steel or­ches­tra Tokyo, sin­gle-pan band Uni-Stars, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, East­ern Quar­ry-based Re­flex Dance Com­pa­ny, Priz­gar Lands/Kel­ly Vil­lage Com­bined, and a duet com­pris­ing Daryann Cord­ner and Di­an­na John­son, filled the spot­light for the sec­ond in­stal­ment of the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion's Com­mu­ni­ty Pan Con­cert se­ries, spon­sored by Blink/Bmo­bile.

They were joined by soloists Akeisha Baines, Toni Williams, Rhol­da John, Sher­ry-Ann Ruben Jack­ie and Genelle Bharat. But, had the pro­duc­ers known the di­rec­tion of the per­for­mances be­fore hand, they would have had good rea­son to theme the event Lights of Laven­tille, con­sid­er­ing that the en­ter­tain­ers were mere min­utes walk or dri­ve from each oth­er.

Melodies of hope and sounds of praise filled the precincts of the East­ern Quar­ry in a bid to stamp out the vi­o­lence and no­to­ri­ety for the which the com­mu­ni­ty had be­come syn­ony­mous. A large con­tin­gent of tal­ent­ed youths joined hands with el­ders to make the call for the re­turn of seren­i­ty in their com­mu­ni­ty. Singing to mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment from her band Uni Stars, un­der the mu­sic di­rec­tion of Ka­reem Brown, Bharat ren­dered El­la An­dall's Miss­ing Gen­er­a­tion, while John, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer for Sound Spe­cial­ists, was in­spired to of­fer an­oth­er item from the singer's vol­ume of works. Black Woman was the tune of choice.

John's Sound Spe­cial­ists pan­mates sus­tained the in­spi­ra­tional mood. Judg­ing from the se­lec­tions, they clear­ly were Whit­ney Hous­ton fans.

Baines per­formed the Great­est Love of All, while Williams did One Mo­ment In Time. Ruben-Jack­ie, an­oth­er prod­uct of Laven­tille, de­liv­ered a mono­logue. In it, she trad­ed places with a tourist who was bom­bard­ed with trav­el ad­vi­sories about the nu­mer­ous pre­cau­tions to be tak­en when com­mut­ing along the East­ern Main Road (in Laven­tille) be­cause of spi­ralling crime. How­ev­er, what greet­ed this vis­i­tor was the mag­nif­i­cent artistry couched in Laven­tille. Along the way she took de­light on hear­ing the mu­si­cal ta­pes­try from the Laven­tille Rhythm Sec­tion Priz­gar­lands/Kel­ly Vil­lage Com­bined and of course Sound Spe­cial­ists. Un­doubt­ed­ly, the fo­cus of Ruben-Jack­ie's work was a fit­ting trib­ute to the artis­tic ex­cel­lence that abounds in this trou­ble com­mu­ni­ty which came to­geth­er un­der one ban­ner for a pro­duc­tion that begs a re­peat.