Sean Nero

The Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (NPATT) wants gov­ern­ment to in­tro­duce parang in the class­room. Neal Mar­cano, pres­i­dent of NPATT, con­firmed this to the T&T Guardian at Sat­ur­day's for­mal launch the north­ern edi­tion of the 2009 Parang Fes­ti­val, held at the Ari­ma Velo­drome.

He said his or­gan­i­sa­tion's ad­vances to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry were de­signed to give the parang art form sim­i­lar sta­tus to the state-fund­ed Pan In the Class­room project. "We in­tend to get in­stru­ments and teach­ers in­to the schools," Mar­cano said. "Mem­bers are very ex­cit­ed about this. Parang in The Class­room will pro­vide the op­por­tu­ni­ty to teach and keep the art form alive. "We have 35-40 schools par­tic­i­pat­ing both at the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools Ju­nior Parang Fes­ti­val. That's not good enough. We hope to triple it." Scores of parang lovers came out to ush­er in this year's parang sea­son which re­turned to the Ari­ma Velo­drome for the first time in al­most 15 years.

Mar­cano said NPATT was sup­posed to move its op­er­a­tions, as well as the stag­ing of the fes­ti­val, from the Pri­or­i­ty Mall in Ari­ma.

But al­though re­lo­ca­tion of its of­fices has been de­layed, the out­fit ac­cept­ed an of­fer from Ari­ma May­or Adri­an Cabralis to host this year's Parang Fes­ti­val in the Velo­drome. Even though the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­ders Af­fairs has not giv­en any com­mit­ment to fund­ing this year's event which will cost NPATT $2.8 mil­lion, Mar­cano made it clear that the fes­ti­val would take place.

Parang afi­ciona­dos can look for­ward to 14 weeks of mu­sic ac­tion, up from 13, which in­cludes a cruise aboard the MV Trea­sure Queen be­tween the semis and fi­nal.

"The min­istry (Cul­ture) is a lit­tle more aware of the goals of the Parang As­so­ci­a­tion," Mar­cano said. "We ex­pect them to be more sen­si­tive to our needs this year, but come what may, we will have a Parang Fes­ti­val." He said pa­trons could ex­pect a high­er lev­el of per­for­mance, com­ing out of work­shops host­ed ear­li­er in the year by NPATT as part of its ef­forts to put parang on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. Pa­trons got a taste of that on the week­end, as 16 groups took the spot­light, en­sur­ing that pa­trons didn't stop danc­ing un­til the last note was struck around 3 am.