Kevon Felmine

Loud jeers and laugh­ter from some pa­trons at the Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, failed to de­ter semi­fi­nal­ists in the La Reine Rive seg­ment of the Prime Min­is­ter's Best Vil­lage Com­pe­ti­tion on Sat­ur­day night. The del­e­gates went through their paces, ig­nor­ing at­tempts by some in the au­di­ence to dis­tract them.

At one point, the mas­ter of cer­e­monies ap­pealed to the un­ruly pa­trons to ex­er­cise the­atre eti­quette and be qui­et dur­ing per­for­mances. How­ev­er, some of them ig­nored that ap­peal. The con­tes­tants went ahead with their dances, mono­logues and ca­lyp­soes and earned ap­pre­cia­tive ap­plause from most pa­trons. One of the more mem­o­rable per­for­mances came from Khadisha Ce­de­no, of the Pic­ton Folk Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny, who de­liv­ered a spine chill­ing mono­logue en­ti­tled Mis­chie­vous One.

Dressed as a dev­il her per­for­mance in­clud­ed haunt­ing sounds ef­fects and African drums as she tack­led is­sues such as AIDS, death and pover­ty. In a fine dis­play of vo­cal tal­ent, Em­ba­cadere Cul­tur­al Group's Malai­ka Bal­lan­tyne got hearty cheers for her na­tion build­ing piece, Ca­lyp­so Ris­ing. African dances were su­perbly dis­played by Afeisha Charles of the Pic­ton Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny and Shau­ni­ca Long­don of the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers.

The semi­fi­nal of La Reine Rive con­tin­ues June 16-18 at the San Fer­nan­do Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, Cir­cu­lar Road, Mon Re­pos.