Derek Achong

The semi­fi­nal round of the Car­ni­val Kings Com­pe­ti­tion was dom­i­nat­ed by for­mer mon­archs, with three earn­ing the top spots in the con­test ahead of Fan­tas­tic Fri­day's fi­nal.Vet­er­an mas­quer­ad­er Wade Madray, who last won the com­pe­ti­tion in 2011, main­tained his dom­i­nance from the pre­lim­i­nary round, top­ping the show on Tues­day night with 436 points.

Madray, an ob­vi­ous crowd favourite, amazed mas en­thu­si­asts at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, with his abil­i­ty to dance grace­ful­ly while car­ry­ing the weight of cos­tume, which fea­tured an enor­mous scor­pi­on, il­lu­mi­nat­ed in­ter­nal­ly with eerie red lights.The cos­tume, which took three months to build at the cost of $155,000, was de­signed by Madray and Hay­den Joseph.

In an in­ter­view, be­fore the show, Joseph said the in­spi­ra­tion for the pre­sen­ta­tion, was an an­cient Egypt­ian leg­end of a pharaoh's body­guard, who was ex­e­cut­ed, be­ing rein­car­nat­ed as a scor­pi­on to ex­act re­venge on his for­mer mas­ter.Fol­low­ing close be­hind Madray were sib­lings Cur­tis and Ted Eu­stace, whose de­ceased fa­ther Ted­der, al­so won the com­pe­ti­tion three times.

Cur­tis, him­self a nine-time Car­ni­val King, im­proved on his dis­mal sixth place per­for­mance in last week's pre­lim­i­nary round, scor­ing 430 points for a sec­ond place fin­ish this time around.Cur­tis, in his cos­tume Zanzik­il, Lord of Chaos, a men­ac­ing crim­son ser­pent which oc­cu­pied al­most the en­tire width of the stage, cap­ti­vat­ed the au­di­ence with its in­tri­cate de­sign cou­pled with his re­al­is­tic move­ments chore­o­graphed to his cus­tom mu­si­cal score.

His younger broth­er, Ted, who tied for first place in last year's com­pe­ti­tion, main­tained his third place stand­ing from the pre­lim­i­nary round with the judges award­ing him 426 points.His cos­tume, Mon­key Know What Tree to Climb, con­sists of two large pri­mates climb­ing on­to two over­sized mar­i­jua­na leaves, al­so fea­tured cus­tomised ac­com­pa­ny­ing mu­sic which in­clud­ed reg­gae leg­end Bob Mar­ley's hit Jam­min.

Eu­stace's oth­er broth­er, Mar­cus, who de­signed the $140,000 cos­tume, ex­plained that all of the el­e­ments of the cos­tume were con­struct­ed by lo­cal artists af­fil­i­at­ed to their fam­i­ly's mas pro­duc­tion team."Peo­ple were ask­ing if we im­port­ed the mon­keys from Chi­na but every­thing is made here. Even the hats were made by a Ras­ta guy I know," Mar­cus said, while putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on the cos­tume be­fore the show.

He said the in­spi­ra­tion of the cos­tume, which re­ceived a round of ap­plause from the au­di­ence be­fore even cross­ing the stage, was vet­er­an mas­quer­ad­er Ger­al­do Viera's 1983 win­ning pre­sen­ta­tion Bachac Push­ing Gan­ja."I loved his (Viera) cos­tume... so I thought we should not have to wait till a leg­end dies be­fore pay­ing trib­ute to him," Mar­cus said.

By the end of Tues­day's show, which was free of de­lays and tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties which blight­ed last week's ini­tial round, half of the 20 com­peti­tors in each cat­e­go­ry were elim­i­nat­ed from com­pe­ti­tion.In the Queen's com­pe­ti­tion, vet­er­an mas­quer­ad­er and de­sign­er Glo­ria Dalls­ingh moved 12 spots in­to first place in the com­pe­ti­tion, with her pre­sen­ta­tion We Beat Pan Mu­sic, a red and gold cos­tume which was em­bell­ished with dozens of minia­ture gold­en steel pans.

Her daugh­ter-in-law Lau­ra Ram­per­sad, al­so a mem­ber of Ivan Kalicha­ran's band Beats, placed fifth in the com­pe­ti­tion with her cos­tume which fea­tured an­oth­er mu­si­cal in­stru­ments syn­ony­mous with lo­cal cul­ture, the African drum.In sec­ond place was an­oth­er cos­tume de­signed by Mar­cus Eu­stace, High Noon on the Co­manchero Sa­cred Grounds, show­cased by Raevon Ather­ton of the band Pa­parazzi.

At the cen­tre of the cos­tume, which was the largest in the Queens' com­pe­ti­tion, was a gi­gan­tic sil­ver skull with glow­ing eye sock­ets, wear­ing a colour­ful Na­tive Amer­i­can head­ress.De­ne­sha Jen­nings of Jen­nings and As­so­ciates, who start­ed the night in tenth place, al­so im­proved on her po­si­tion in Tues­day's semi­fi­nal plac­ing third with 404 points.

Tami­ka George's pre­sen­ta­tion Re­frac­tion: A Phe­nom­e­non of Light, which was the fore­run­ner in the pre­lim­i­nary round was the on­ly dis­ap­point­ment in the semi­fi­nal show, al­beit by no fault of her own.The Ari­ma-na­tive's cos­tume which daz­zled in the pre­vi­ous round with its re­flec­tive coat­ings and neon light­ing, seemed to be out­shined by the light­ing di­rect­ed at the stage, which should have been be dimmed at times to al­low the cos­tume's light­ing ef­fects to shine through.

George is the daugh­ter of vet­er­an Car­ni­val Queen par­tic­i­pant Pa­tri­cia Bai­ley, who took a break from this year's com­pe­ti­tion for the first in 31 years, to al­low her daugh­ter to rep­re­sent the fam­i­ly's band Bai­ley and As­so­ciates."It's time for the youths to take over," Bai­ley said as she gave her daugh­ter some last-minute ad­vice be­fore she crossed the stage.The fi­nal of the com­pe­ti­tions as well as those of the Ju­nior Car­ni­val Kings and Queens will kick off at the same venue at 7 pm on Fri­day.