Un­like its first in­stal­ment last year, last week’s Eman­ci­pate Your­self Through Steel was held un­der clear skies at Des­per­a­does’ pa­n­yard in Port-of-Spain. Host­ed by pop­u­lar ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Vin­yard, the pro­gramme was a var­ied one, treat­ing pa­trons to pan, brass, fash­ion, and African drum­ming and dance.

The pan mu­sic was very good, with the T&T Po­lice Steel­band open­ing with a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance, the band aug­ment­ed by a brass sec­tion and elec­tric bass. Al­so thrilling pan lovers on the night were Massy Trinidad All Stars, Shell In­vaders, and Des­per­a­does Youth and se­nior bands. Not to be left, the Pris­ons Ser­vices Band was al­so in fine knick with a mixed set, in­clud­ing a few back in times num­bers. An en­sem­ble of young drum­mers and dancers from Bel­mont and Laven­tille, the Dafolist troupe al­so gave a live­ly per­for­mance.

Out­fits for the Eman­ci­pa­tion fash­ion seg­ment, show­cas­ing a va­ri­ety of styles from Cameroon, Ghana, Nige­ria and oth­er African states, were sourced from Av­ery Am­mon’s Afri­ka House of Bel­mont, were al­so well re­ceived. The show was co­or­di­nat­ed by Na­bal­lah Chi and mod­els on the evening in­clud­ed Kwe­si Moore, Rochford Coutain, Mi­ran­da Mar­tin, Eliz­a­beth Rob­ley, Maya, Nico­lette and Melis­sa Roberts, all mu­si­cians from Des­per­a­does, and band El­der Pe­ter Ray Blood.

The sec­ond edi­tion of the an­nu­al Eman­ci­pate Your­self Through Steel end­ed at three o’clock on the morn­ing of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day with Des­per­a­does play­ing its 1983 Na­tion­al Panora­ma win­ning tune of choice, Blue Boy’s Re­bec­ca.

NCIC Di­vali Na­gar 2019 com­pe­ti­tions in full swing

The Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) con­tin­ues to hold au­di­tions for the 2019 Youth Champ, Dance Com­pe­ti­tion and Queen Pageant. The SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege, Coalmine Road, San­gre Grande, is the venue for Sun­day’s au­di­tion. To be co­or­di­nat­ed by Shali­ni Juter­am, the au­di­tion is sched­uled to be­gin at 10 am.

The first of four au­di­tions was held last Sun­day at the Blue­birds Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of Sookan and Ramsabad Trace, Bar­rack­pore. It was co­or­di­nat­ed by Gau­tam Ma­haraj.

The band­wag­on moves to Point Fortin Hin­du Tem­ple on Sun­day, Au­gust 18, from 10 am to noon, for the third au­di­tion, co­or­di­nat­ed by Coun­cil­lor Shankar Tel­lucks­ingh.

The fi­nal au­di­tion will be held joint­ly with the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi Cul­tur­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion on Sat­ur­day, Au­gust 24, from 2 pm to 6 pm, at the Bis­ram Gopee Sangeet Bhawan, NCIC Na­gar, Ch­agua­nas.

All ap­pli­cants for the Queen Pageant must at­tend ful­ly at­tired to mod­el and to present a one-minute speech, a cru­cial qual­i­fy­ing re­quire­ment in or­der to pro­ceed to the lo­cal fi­nals to­geth­er with the Youth Champ and Dance se­mi-fi­nal­ists which will be held on Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 15, from 1 pm to 5.30 pm, at the Atri­um, Gulf City Shop­ping Com­plex, La Ro­maine.

In an at­tempt to un­earth the hid­den tal­ents of our own chil­dren of the soil, or­gan­is­ers are reach­ing out to var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties with four au­di­tions and not the one off held pre­vi­ous­ly.

This year, will be the 33rd year of stag­ing Di­vali Na­gar and The­mat­ic Di­rec­tor Ba­ba Sat­narayan Mourya from Mum­bai, In­dia, is once again putting to­geth­er the ex­hi­bi­tion for the theme cho­sen for this year’s-pre­sen­ta­tion — Hin­du Granth (Hin­du Texts).

A NCIC spokesper­son told Pulse: “Our an­nu­al Yagna that pre­cedes Di­vali Na­gar will com­mence on Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 6 to Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 12, with our de­vo­tion­al hours are from 7 pm to 9 pm night­ly. Of­fi­ci­at­ing Vyas will be Pun­dit Ab­hedanand Per­sad Shar­ma, as­sist­ed by Pun­dit Vi­nesh Ma­haraj of Arou­ca.”

This year’s Di­vali Na­gar com­mences on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 18, and con­cludes on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 26 with a ma­jes­tic fire­works dis­play.

The spokesper­son added: “The ho­n­our has been be­stowed up­on Sa­hadeo Par­tap to be Chair­man of Di­vali Na­gar 2019 and he will be ably as­sist­ed by Deeroop Teemal. Join with us as we cel­e­brate the tri­umph of light over dark in this ex­trav­a­gant show.”

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, call 389 8425.