In­nis Fran­cis

Drawn by the theme "To­ca De Amor" (A Touch of Love), the evening's line-up con­sist­ed of a cast of tal­ent­ed peo­ple whose in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the word Christ­mas was fea­tured with a lo­cal twist. The Arawak Dance Com­pa­ny host­ed the event as it cel­e­brat­ed its 53rd an­niver­sary at the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do, last month.

Artis­tic di­rec­tor Tor­rance Mo­hammed, in his re­marks, said: "In this sce­nario, there­fore, we need more than ever to gen­er­ate, pro­mote and trans­mit, in good faith, love, peace and har­mo­ny." Marred by mi­nor glitch­es dur­ing the pro­gramme, it was in­evitable that with some of south's finest tal­ents, the essence of Christ­mas was sure to abound on stage. En­ter­tain­ment in song and dance and even on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment formed part of the evening's show and which in­cor­po­rat­ed the val­ues of Christ­mas and what it re­al­ly is all about.

Some ster­ling per­for­mances were of­fered by the Jazzettes (Arawak's Ju­niors); Liselle Flem­ing; Holy Faith Con­vent, Pe­nal; Tsiann Joseph; Afrikana (Arawak's Se­niors); and, Tia To­by. Af­ter a 20-minute in­ter­mis­sion, the sec­ond half of the show re­sumed with an­oth­er rush for love as the San Fer­nan­do Cul­tur­al Am­bas­sadors set the pace and left a re­mark­able im­pres­sion with their choice of clas­si­cal and chut­ney se­lec­tions. Al­so keep­ing the trend of tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas mu­sic alive and the au­di­ence en­ter­tained, were Lennox "Bob­by" Mo­hammed; Ter­ry David Per­form­ing The­atre Com­pa­ny; and, fe­male San­fest win­ner Vic­to­ra Cop­per.