Lo­cal so­ca artistes and dancers have un­til next month to reg­is­ter for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the first an­nu­al Point Fortin Bor­ough Day So­ca Monarch and So­ca Dance Com­pe­ti­tions.The se­mi-fi­nals are sched­uled to take place at Fes­ti­val Square, Point Fortin on April 21 from 5 pm.The an­nounce­ment was made by the pro­mot­ers, MADD T Pro­mo­tions Ltd and G Spot Lounge, at a me­dia launch at D Nu Pub, Wood­brook, last Thurs­day.

"Ob­ject of the com­pe­ti­tion is to pro­mote our mu­sic, in par­tic­u­lar the so­ca genre, among our youths," said head of MADD T Pro­mo­tions Wayne T (Win­ston Thomas). "As this mu­sic is on­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, our in­ten­tion is to mar­ket, pro­mote and open this com­pe­ti­tion af­ter its pre­miere to in­clude both re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants in­volved in so­ca singing and danc­ing. This first edi­tion is lim­it­ed to lo­cal par­tic­i­pants, on­ly," said Thomas.Fif­teen so­ca singers and five dancers will be se­lect­ed to com­pete in the se­mi-fi­nal round, from which ten singers and two dancers will ad­vance to the fi­nal. Con­tes­tants are re­quired to sub­mit a new work on CD (singers) and DVD (dancers). Reg­is­tra­tion and sub­mis­sion of ma­te­r­i­al should be made at the G Spot Lounge, Cipero Street, San Fer­nan­do.

The com­pe­ti­tion will ho­n­our icon­ic son of Point Fortin and reign­ing Road March cham­pi­on and Joint So­ca Monarch Su­perBlue (Austin Lyons). So­ca singers will com­pete for a prize of $30,000 and so­ca dancers, $15,000 in the fi­nals sched­uled for May 1, at the same venue, dur­ing the an­nu­al Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions in Point Fortin."We see this com­pe­ti­tion as not on­ly a cul­tur­al ex­er­cise, but al­so an ed­u­ca­tion­al and cre­ative un­der­tak­ing that will show­case the mu­sic and skill of all com­peti­tors," said Wayne T.

MADD T Pro­mo­tions (Mega Artistes Dy­nam­ic Di­verse Tal­ent Pro­mo­tions) is a lim­it­ed li­a­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny lo­cat­ed at 13 Vol­un­teer Rd, Ma­haica, Point Fortin. Its aim is to pro­mote cul­tur­al events in and around the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try that tar­get young tal­ent­ed men and women in the so­ca, ca­lyp­so, DJ, pan and dance are­nas, by de­sign­ing com­pe­ti­tions that arouse their sense of unique­ness.