Kali­fa Clyne

Min­is­ter of Arts, Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly says T&T is look­ing to South Amer­i­ca as a po­ten­tial mar­ket for steel­pan and steel­pan ser­vices.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said this dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day at her Nicholas Tow­ers of­fice in Port-of-Spain as she dis­trib­uted cheques to un­spon­sored steel­bands.

The 180 small and con­ven­tion­al bands re­ceived cheques val­ued at $10,000 and $20,000, re­spec­tive­ly. The to­tal cost of spon­sor­ing the bands is $2.9 mil­lion.

"We are al­so look­ing to spread pan to dif­fer­ent coun­tries. We have a lot of South Amer­i­can coun­tries in­di­cat­ing in­ter­est and we want to be able to get in­to those mar­kets be­cause they are typ­i­cal­ly coun­tries with the large or­ches­tras," Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She said one of the min­istry's goals was to get the pan in­to the or­ches­tras. "If we can do that then we can fo­cus on the busi­ness of the in­stru­ment it­self, be­ing able to mar­ket it and all that goes along with it, for ex­am­ple, the tun­ing and all those things."

Gads­by-Dol­ly said mon­etis­ing Car­ni­val was one of the pri­or­i­ties of the min­istry.

"Get­ting the pan out there is one of our main thrusts."

She said the Gov­ern­ment would al­so be work­ing more close­ly with Pan Trin­ba­go on a num­ber of de­vel­op­men­tal pro­grammes.

"We have agreed that as soon as Car­ni­val is fin­ished, we are go­ing to have dis­cus­sion about their de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes and how we can sup­port them and how they can sup­port the min­istry in its work as well.

"We have a cul­tur­al camp that goes on and they have shown in­ter­est in get­ting in­volved in that camp."

She said the min­istry al­so had a pro­gramme called Mu­sic Schools in Com­mu­ni­ties.

The pro­gramme, based on the pan, is ex­pect­ed to ex­pand in the com­ing year.

"We are look­ing to see how we can get that to be more wide­spread. With the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion we have to look at how we can do it, but we want to en­sure that we spread it so the chil­dren in our coun­try can get ac­cus­tomed to pan and can love the steel­pan."

Gads­by-Dol­ly told pan or­gan­is­ers the min­istry was com­mit­ted to the cul­ture and the art form.

"I want to com­mend the un­spon­sored steel­band be­cause of the in­vest­ment it takes to run a steel­band.

"I know what we are able to con­tribute at this time is a small drop in a large buck­et, but you do this for the love of the art form. I am glad to be in a po­si­tion to give sup­port."