Rashan­da Mc Ken­na

Vi­brant colour and mul­ti­ple di­men­sions of lo­cal cre­ativ­i­ty cap­ti­vat­ed ea­ger spec­ta­tors at yes­ter­day's 2012 Red Cross Kid­dies Car­ni­val Pa­rade, at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. The day was a good one for the tod­dlers and teens as they ra­ma­jayed on the stage to Iw­er George's Jab Mo­lassie and Machel Mon­tano's Rev­el­ling, all decked in fine iri­des­cent three-di­men­sion­al fig­ures, mount­ed feath­ers and colour­ful tie-dye, check­ered and paint­ed cloth that glis­tened in the sun.

Pre­sen­ta­tions in­clud­ed bril­liant de­signs such as first-place win­ner of the cou­ples cat­e­go­ry, D'Arch­bish­op Of Pan, in mem­o­ry of the late Dr Pat Bish­op, which was mas­quer­ad­ed by Ayshi­ah Mc Ea­chine Ass­ing. A fa­mil­iar name in TnT cul­ture, Daisy Voisin was im­mor­talised in the por­tray­al With A Bou­quet In She Hand worn by Thea Mort­ley. Con­tro­ver­sy, played by babe-in-arm Mi­ley As­see took the first place in her cat­e­go­ry. Among the win­ners in the three to five di­vi­sion were Ri­han­na De Sil­va play­ing A Mu­si­cal Com­pi­la­tion, and Ar­man­do Sham Poo in his cos­tume Pi­cong, de­signed by Clas­sic Pro­duc­tions.

The most out­stand­ing in the six to eight cat­e­go­ry was Jevon Cor­bie in his cobalt and cerulean blue cos­tume, Blue Vex. Spe­cial prizes went to the mem­o­rable cos­tume Dra­ma Queen, which was a swirl of yel­low, pink, red and or­ange feath­er Boers, stacked on­to a bag pack and chan­de­liered on­to the stage be­low. This year's Red Cross pa­rade al­so com­mem­o­rat­ed stal­warts of T&T Car­ni­val who have passed. They recog­nised mas mak­er Wayne Berke­ley, me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Allyson Hen­nessy and sup­port­er of the arts Mary Nor­ton, all who sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tributed to Car­ni­val.