It could have been the danc­ing. It could have been the drums or the chant­i­ng. It could have been the cos­tumes. But what­ev­er it was, af­ter view­ing Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny's, Nos­tal­gic: Fu­tur­is­tic Ex­pres­sions at Queen's Hall on Sun­day, one walked away feel­ing a sense of pride and joy to be af­fil­i­at­ed with the African cul­ture and her­itage.

De­pict­ing the times gone by when prac­tis­ing African cus­toms was for­bid­den, to cel­e­brat­ing free­dom, per­form­ers dressed the stage with colour in their folk-wear as they ex­pressed the soul of Africa through chore­o­graphed pieces by Michael Lu­cien, Carl­ton Fran­cis, Stashelle George, Kim­my Stoute Robin­son, A Babb, K Sargeant and Derek Casano­va.

Mul­ti-me­dia pre­sen­ta­tions were al­so done in mem­o­ry of the late mem­bers of the com­pa­ny, among them Mairoon Ali, De­von By­ron, Kern Brath­waite, Er­rol Jones, Carl­ton Fran­cis, Glen Alexan­der and oth­ers. Au­di­ence mem­bers al­so got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to view their work in a short ex­cerpt from Earl Lovelace's Wine Of As­ton­ish­ment.

High­light­ing the achieve­ments of the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny over the years, time was tak­en to recog­nise its past rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Miss La Reine Rive Com­pe­ti­tion. Some were al­so giv­en awards for their long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to the com­pa­ny.

Sweet to the end

As the evening came to a wrap, the sec­ond half of the show proved each mo­ment bet­ter than the last. With a bit more em­pha­sis placed on the "new gen­er­a­tion" of the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers, in­deed "fu­tur­is­tic ex­pres­sions" were in full flight as the au­di­ence was treat­ed to mod­ern-dance, in­clud­ing latin, hip-hop, so­ca and dance-hall.

A hearty round of ap­plause erupt­ed for for­mer Miss La Rein Rive win­ner, Ru-Ann Cabralis, who de­liv­ered a pore rais­ing ren­di­tion of El­la An­dall's Miss­ing Gen­er­a­tion. She was fol­lowed by Stashelle George do­ing a so­lo piece en­ti­tled Cre­ative Ex­pres­sions.

Just when pa­trons thought that the thrill had peaked, the women of Wasa Foli In­ter­na­tion­al clear­ly demon­strat­ed that women can beat drums too.Be­tween in­tri­cate dance moves, these women were able to bring down the house with their strong pres­ence and drum­ming skills. The evening end­ed with lim­bo dancer Kim­my Stoute-Robin­son pay­ing trib­ute to renowned fire-bar lim­bo dancer Ny­dia By­ron of the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny.

Guest artistes for the evening in­clud­ed, Mar­cia Charles Dance Com­pa­ny, Ly­di­ans Choir, Los Alum­nos De San Juan, Bmo­bile Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny and Wasa Foli In­ter­na­tion­al.