Kevon Felmine

Set against an ex­ot­ic back­drop, vis­i­ble through clouds of fog, the cre­ative use of colour­ful light­ing un­leashed the im­pres­sive pre­sen­ta­tion from the artistes of Deni­cia's Dance The­atre. The Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do was trans­formed in­to a mag­i­cal dance par­adise on Ju­ly 2 as the in­sti­tute pre­sent­ed its first pro­duc­tion en­ti­tled, My Pas­sion for Dance. Led by tal­ent­ed chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Deni­cia Smith, stu­dents put on some of the most ex­hil­a­rat­ing per­for­mances ever to hit the south­ern city. The show, laced with a va­ri­ety of con­tem­po­rary, clas­si­cal and mod­ern dance pieces, left pa­trons in awe of the ex­pres­sions cre­at­ed through the use of pop­u­lar mu­sic.

Je­sus Is The An­swer, an el­e­gant­ly chore­o­graphed piece, kicked off the se­ries of dance as the artistes grace­ful­ly showed off pos­ture and moves. Dressed in blood red, the dancers' per­for­mance was uni­formed and well ex­e­cut­ed. Sime­on Pe­ters and Re­nee Lewis thrilled the au­di­ence with their dra­mat­ic ex­e­cu­tion of We Were, Once, Was, the pull and tugs of a strug­gling re­la­tion of love and ha­tred, to Melanie Fiona's It Kills Me. Smith then en­tered the fray with a sul­try and provoca­tive ex­hi­bi­tion of qual­i­ty artis­tic ex­pres­sion in dance. Her per­for­mance of What Ever She Wants was up­lift­ed by Sade's Jezebel.

Ar­i­an­na Ram­per­sad and Ten­nille Prescott did a beau­ti­ful piece that por­trayed the bond of friend­ship. The dance en­ti­tled Best Friends For­ev­er was done to Be­y­once's Dis­ap­peared. While there was a va­ri­ety of eth­nic dances, the lo­cal arts were not for­got­ten as Cat­ri­na Ram­per­sad and Sha­heed Ali ex­e­cut­ed an ex­cit­ing East In­di­an dance. The duo brought the stage to life with their por­tray­al of a cou­ple's bliss. Then it was time for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment to shine, when Hol­lis Smith and the Pan El­ders Steel­band did a groovy ren­di­tion of Ste­vie Won­der's Mas­ter Blasters, be­fore rock­ing the house with Bob Mar­ley's Jam­ming.

Den­nis Smith, a well known south pan­nist and Deni­cia's fa­ther, fol­lowed up with a pan per­for­mance, and her moth­er, a for­mer Best Vil­lage win­ner, per­formed Love Don't Live here any­more by Rose Royce.