Kevon Felmine

Af­ter study­ing all year long, stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) downed books for a night of fun as the col­lege held its an­nu­al Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions last Thurs­day. The event en­ti­tled Iz Wat, was a first time ini­tia­tive tak­en by the stu­dent guild of the uni­ver­si­ty. Funds de­rived from the show will go to­ward the Stu­dent's Fi­nan­cial Aid and help stu­dents who are in need. The event took place at the car park of the Corinth Teach­ers Train­ing Col­lege in Ste Made­line, where many from the var­i­ous UTT cam­pus­es na­tion-wide gath­ered. It fea­tured a va­ri­ety of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions, among them ca­lyp­so, chut­ney so­ca, ex­tem­po, and Ole Mas, host­ed by stu­dent and 2011 Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal­ist, Bri­an Lon­don.

Dwayne Baldeo pre­sen­ta­tion was hi­lar­i­ous. Por­tray­ing a Geri­atric Tan­ty Man, Baldeo pow­dered his en­tire body and "palanced" away in Ole Mas bat­tle, much to the amuse­ment of the crowd. He copped first place, with Keny­a­ta John­son, who did a won­der­ful dis­play of the Jab­mo­lassie, tak­ing sec­ond place. In the ca­lyp­so seg­ment, the Corinth Cam­pus' gospel di­va, Sh­er­na Di­az, scooped up the ti­tle with her ren­di­tion of Don't Give Up. Di­az's per­for­mance high­light­ed the do­mes­tic is­sues that has plagued so­ci­ety for some time. The Ex­tem­po com­pe­ti­tion was filled with laugh­ter and pi­cong, as San Fer­nan­do Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute's Ak­ene Wong-Leid ver­bal­ly de­stroyed his com­pe­ti­tion, fin­ish­ing first. Wong-Leid was the star of the night, as he al­so placed first in the Chut­ney So­ca com­pe­ti­tion and sec­ond in the So­ca. The so­ca com­pe­ti­tion was the fiercest of them all, as Point Lisas Cam­pus' Keisha Steel­ing showed the crowd how to gy­rate with a big stom­ach. How­ev­er, it was Corinth Cam­pus' Leon Brew­ster who walk away so­ca champ, with his song Mis­sis­sip­pi Wine. Brew­ster had the crowd win­ing with a new twist as they par­tied on.

But it was not on­ly about com­pe­ti­tion. As the event un­fold­ed, the crowd grew, with bus-loads of stu­dents mak­ing their way to the venue. The Hard Bar­gain Earth Crew stirred up a fren­zy mood with the rhyth­mic sounds of iron. The par­ty at­mos­phere was alive when the mod­els of We Peo­ple In­ter­na­tion­al Mas Band pre­sent­ed their 2011 Car­ni­val por­tray­al of Snow White Ball. The mas­quer­aders put on a show for the crowd as they held a win­ing ses­sion on the stage, much to the de­light of the men in the au­di­ence. Stu­dents were al­so treat­ed to per­for­mances by artistes Buffy, Ravi B, Cas­si, Patch, Shal Mar­shall and the Mil­lion­aire Fam­i­ly. The event was deemed a suc­cess by stu­dent sup­port of­fi­cer, Jesse Moss, who was pleased at the stu­dent's con­duct and their ad­her­ence to the no al­co­hol pol­i­cy. Man­ag­er of Stu­dent Sup­port Cheryl-Ann Jack­son said this was just the be­gin­ning of many stu­dent ini­tia­tives, and laud­ed the guild mem­bers for or­gan­is­ing the event with the aim of help­ing their peers.