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Friday, July 18, 2025

Pulse

Carnival 2016 gets a Pass Mark

by

20160211

Af­ter much rev­el­ry and mer­ry­mak­ing, hope­ful­ly we can all set­tle down to the sup­pos­ed­ly peace­ful and re­flec­tive pe­ri­od of Lent, com­plete with sac­ri­fices for 40 days, most of which will be bro­ken.

Car­ni­val is just about com­plet­ed and dust­ed off al­though rem­nants of the 2016 fes­ti­val still linger, in­clu­sive of to­mor­row night's Champs in Steel Plus, staged by Pan Trin­ba­go Inc at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

De­spite a pauci­ty of cre­ativ­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty in all the com­po­nents of the an­nu­al fes­ti­val, sev­er­al rays of hope and po­ten­tial ra­di­at­ed. Few of the judg­ing de­ci­sions at­tract­ed crit­i­cism and most of the win­ners were well de­served.

De­spite be­ing off the Car­ni­val main stage for many a year, Pe­ter Min­shall re­turned in 2016 through his de­sign of The Dy­ing Swan–Ras Ni­jin­sky in Drag as Pavlo­va, per­formed by past King of Car­ni­val Jha-Whan Thomas. This unique cos­tume, the mas­quer­ad­er high in the air on stilts, cre­at­ed a storm in a teacup in the King of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion from even­tu­al win­ning de­sign­er Mar­cus Eu­stace and a con­fed­er­a­cy of de­trac­tors, clam­ing that the por­tray­al was not "mas." I was be­mused and won­dered if this wasn't mas, in its purest, tra­di­tion­al form, what was?

Based on the re­sults of both the King and Queen of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions, it seemed that the judges turned a blind eye to tra­di­tion­al cos­tumes. While Thomas was placed sec­ond run­ner-up amongst the kings, in the queens fi­nals, 2015 queen Stephanie Kan­hai, al­so on stilts, was placed ninth.

The ju­ry is still out on a fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion as to whether the mass can­cel­la­tion of shows and fetes this year was due to the short sea­son or aus­ter­i­ty, caused by the spec­tre of re­ces­sion. Be­gin­ning with the can­cel­la­tion of the $18m Car­ni­val Vil­lage at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, among the oth­er big events can­celled were Fire Fete, Fan­ta­sy cool­er fete and De­stra's con­cert.

But Army Fete was a bumper suc­cess, en­joyed by thou­sands of pa­trons. Al­so pro­vid­ing much en­ter­tain­ment and en­joy­ment were the all-in­clu­sive fetes host­ed by St Mary's Col­lege, Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Bish­op Anstey High School, and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege in San Fer­nan­do and Ch­agua­nas. George Singh's RED, held un­der the pa­tron­age of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris al Rawi, was al­so a suc­cess sto­ry.

The biggest show for the sea­son was Machel Mon­day, staged at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. Head­lined by so­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano, the event show­cased a mix of mu­sic gen­res and artistes in­clud­ing Pit­bull, Omi, Timaya, An­gela Hunte, Cut­ty Ranks, Cha­ka De­mus & Pli­ers, Lil Jon, Ker­nal Roberts, Aaron Dun­can, De­stra, Olatun­ji, Farmer Nap­py,

Ker­win DuBois and Patrice Roberts. For most, the $1,200 ad­mis­sion fee paid was well worth it.

So­ca saw a new cham­pi­on with the crown­ing of 22-year-old Voice (Aaron St Louis) as the 2016 In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch. A cut above his 19 ri­vals, Voice was a pop­u­lar win­ner per­form­ing his dit­ty, Cheers to Life.

The Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Fi­nal al­so served to al­lay any fear or con­cern about the fu­ture of ca­lyp­so as two young men ruled the roost on Sun­day night. Win­ner De­von Seale was stout­ly chal­lenged by run­ner-up Helon Fran­cis, the lat­ter be­ing crowned this year's Young Kings Monarch the pre­vi­ous fort­night. On a night that fea­tured five for­mer na­tion­al mon­archs, the youth re­al­ly put up a strong show­ing against vet­er­ans like Chalk­dust, Cro Cro and Gyp­sy. Singing Re­spect God's Voice and Spir­it of Car­ni­val, Seale was a well-de­served win­ner.

Panora­ma: Ku­dos toPan El­ders and Des­pers

While there seemed to be no doubts as to who would win the Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Medi­um) Fi­nal from the mo­ment Pan El­ders com­plet­ed its per­for­mance, the fi­nal among the large con­ven­tion­al steel or­ches­tras was a tougher con­test to de­ter­mine a win­ner. Ap­pear­ing in po­si­tion one, Pan El­ders played Du­vonne Stew­art's arrange­ment of Bal­ly's Me Eh Fight­ing. This band's per­for­mance was one of the most ex­hil­a­rat­ing of the 20 bands per­form­ing in both cat­e­gories.

Des­per­a­does notched its 11th lien on the Na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tle, hav­ing not won since 2002. Every­thing about Des­per­a­does' come­back achieve­ment seemed to be di­vine­ly or­dained.

Per­form­ing in po­si­tion nine of ten fi­nal­ists, just above de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Massy Trinidad All Stars, the Laven­tille band gave the per­for­mance of its life ex­e­cut­ing Carl­ton "Zan­da" Alexan­der's arrange­ment of 5 Star Ak­il's Dif­fer­ent Me. Many peo­ple have ex­pressed the wish that this mile­stone achieve­ment would in fact in­fuse the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty and spark a dif­fer­ent side to its cre­ative peo­ple.

New kid on the block First Cit­i­zens Su­per­Novas could very well have been ahead of the pack up to Des­per­a­does' per­for­mance but on this night that page in the his­to­ry book, of a debu­tante ris­ing from the small band cat­e­go­ry to win the large na­tion­al cham­pi­onship, would not be writ­ten. The Lopinot band gave a mas­ter­ful per­for­mance, though, of Break­through, arranged by Am­rit Sama­roo. De­spite this, some have ques­tioned the one point dif­fer­ence be­tween Des­per­a­does and Su­per­Novas, many sup­pos­ing that it was wider.

With an army of sup­port­ers in tow, much had been ex­pect­ed of Trinidad All Stars to score back-to-back wins in the com­pe­ti­tion. But the judges thought that the band's ex­e­cu­tion of Leon "Smooth" Ed­wards' arrange­ment of Clive Tele­maque's Leave We Alone was on­ly de­serv­ing of a mere sixth place, the low­est the Duke Steel band has placed for some time in a Panora­ma fi­nal.

On the top­ic of pan, as I sat in the Sa­van­nah on Sat­ur­day night, I won­dered what would be­come of the art of tun­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment af­ter men like Bertrand "Birch" Kell­man and Desmond "Map­po" Richard­son have moved on? Of the 20 bands com­pet­ing, these two men tuned in­stru­ments for 11, of course along with oth­er stal­wart tuners like Roland Har­ri­g­an, Lloyd Gay, Ju­nior "Blue­boy" Pe­ters, Gabriel "Doyle" Rob­ley and Clif­ford Al­fred. When would a com­prehsive course in pan tun­ing be in­au­gu­rat­ed by Pan Trin­ba­go Inc?

Chaot­ic mas: lulls, con­ges­tion

Fi­nal­ly, the mas. Some­thing has got to be done about the Pa­rade of the Bands in Port-of-Spain. It is just too dis­or­gan­ised and is ut­ter chaos. Rules es­tab­lised half cen­tu­ry ago can­not be ap­plic­a­ble now as not on­ly are their more bands but thou­sands more mas­quer­aders, all try­ing to get to the Sa­van­nah and Adam Smith Square in nine hours. The streets and ar­ter­ies to the com­pe­ti­tion venues have not got­ten big­ger.

Af­ter 1 pm on Car­ni­val Tues­day, there was vir­tu­al­ly no mas to be seen down­town. Af­ter Jus' Friends and Des­per­a­does passed on South Quay, the next mas band to be seen was about two hours lat­er when Ron­nie & Caro made their ap­pear­ance. Leav­ing a few bands parad­ing on the Pic­cadil­ly Greens, I walked from Pic­cadil­ly Street to Wood­brook with­out see­ing even an imp or jab jab, far less a mas band. It was a dif­fer­ent sto­ry along Ari­api­ta Av­enue, though, as there was a steady flow of bands, up to when I de­part­ed at 9.30 pm, a cou­ple bands even do­ing the Wood­brook cir­cuit twice.

Ap­par­ent­ly most of the larg­er bands be­gan their pa­rade very ear­ly on Tues­day morn­ing, as the first loud mu­sic heard close to my home at 7 am. Lulls in a smooth flow of bands length­ened the pa­rade tem­plate, as well as con­ges­tion caused by spec­ta­tors, with no vis­i­ble crowd con­trol mea­sure vis­i­ble.

De­spite see­ing a lot of old, re­gur­gi­tat­ed mas, of the few bands to im­press me I was most im­pressed by Ron­nie & Caro's Tears of..., Trinidad All Stars, Lost Tribe, K2K and Pa­parazzi. All Stars evoked mem­o­ries of the old days when steel­band mas ruled the town and oth­er steel bands need to fol­low suit.

I need more space to com­ment on the se­cu­ri­ty in mas bands. Aside from the in­ci­dents re­port­ed on so­cial me­dia, mas­quer­aders, es­pe­cial­ly fe­males, need to be mind­ful that once the sun sets and it gets dark, you are on your own, as it seems that se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel wrap up their rope and go home. On Tues­day evening, more than once I ob­served very dis­repect­ful young men im­pos­ing them­selves on fe­male mas­quer­aders with no se­cu­ri­ty or law en­force­ment per­son­nel in sight.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and rel­e­vant SIGs you have ex­act­ly one year and a cou­ple weeks un­til Car­ni­val 2017, on Feb­ru­ary 27-28, to fix the ills that peren­ni­al­ly plague our na­tion­al fes­ti­val.

Car­ni­val 2016 champs and win­ners:

Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen–Am­ri­ka Mutroo

Young Kings Ca­lyp­so Monarch–Helon Fran­cis

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch–Sharis­sa Came­jo

Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch–De­von Seale

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ex­tem­pore Monarch–Ke­van Cal­liste

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Schools In­tel­lec­tu­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch–Aaron Dun­can

Na­tion­al Ju­nior So­ca Monarch–Aaron Dun­can

In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch–Voice

Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch–KI

Road March cham­pi­on–Machel Mon­tano (Wait­ing on the Stage

Na­tion­al Ex­tem­pore Monarch–Gyp­sy

Best So­cial Com­men­tary–Karene As­che (Bring Back the Love)

Best Po­lit­i­cal Com­men­tary–Du­ane O'Con­nor (Mod­ern Nurs­ery Rhymes)

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma cham­pi­on (Pri­ma­ry Schools)–Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma cham­pi­on (Sec­ondary Schools)–St Joseph's Con­vent, St Joseph

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma cham­pi­on (21 and Un­der)–bpTT Rene­gades Youth

Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Sin­gle Pan cham­pi­on)–Trinidad East Side Sym­pho­ny / Mar­si­cans

Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Small Band cham­pi­on)–Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny

Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Medi­um Band cham­pi­on)–Pan El­ders

Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Large Con­ven­tion­al Band cham­pi­on)–Des­per­a­does

Queen of Car­ni­val (Ju­nior)–Nat­la­tia D'Abreau

Queen of Car­ni­val (Se­nior)–Glo­ria Dalls­ingh (Artemisia, D War­rior Queen)

King of Car­ni­val (Ju­nior)–Jardel Aguillera

King of Car­ni­val (Se­nior)–Ted Eu­stace (Psy­che­del­ic Night­mares)

Band of the Year (Small)–Trib­al Con­nec­tion Cul­tur­al Pro­mo­tion (Through In­di­an Eyes)

Band of the Year (Medi­um)–K2K Al­liance & Part­ners (Search­ing for Shangri La Your Gar­den of Eden)

Band of the Year (Dow­town)–Ron­nie & Caro (Tears of...)

NCC Band of the Year (Large)–Ron­nie & Caro (Tears of...)


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