Sto­ry and pho­tos

by Rishi Ra­goonath

The Christ­mas spir­it was in full swing when stu­dents of Vista­bel­la Pres­by­ter­ian School took to the stage at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts re­cent­ly with their heart­warm­ing pro­duc­tion of “For God So Loved the World.”

Dressed in bright and cheer­ful hol­i­day out­fits, the pupils filled the au­di­to­ri­um with smiles and laugh­ter. The pro­gramme opened with the Stan­dard Four class­es pre­sent­ing a touch­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Light of the World Na­tiv­i­ty, de­pict­ing the sto­ry of Je­sus’ birth.

Next, the tini­est per­form­ers—in­fants dressed as an­gels—charmed the au­di­ence with their ren­di­tion of Je­sus Was Born To­day. The en­er­gy soared when the Stan­dard One stu­dents per­formed Parang Slide, singing and danc­ing to the up­beat tune.

Stan­dard Two fol­lowed with con­fi­dent chore­og­ra­phy to Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy, while the Stan­dard Five pupils—par­tic­i­pat­ing in their fi­nal Christ­mas event at the school—de­liv­ered a live­ly ver­sion of Rockin’ Around the Christ­mas Tree.

The first seg­ment con­clud­ed with an en­thu­si­as­tic per­for­mance of Joy to the World by the Stan­dard Three class.

In the sec­ond half of the con­cert, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Band en­ter­tained par­ents with a fes­tive med­ley of Christ­mas car­ols.

Prin­ci­pal Cur­tis Din­di­al ad­dressed the au­di­ence, not­ing, “This event has be­come a true sig­na­ture oc­ca­sion for our school and has con­tin­ued to evolve over the years.” He praised the stu­dents, adding, “We are blessed with a vast reper­toire of tal­ent—tal­ent that is ready and ex­cit­ed to shine for your en­joy­ment this evening.”

He high­light­ed the con­cert’s ex­pan­sion, say­ing, “This year, our con­cert has grown even fur­ther. In ad­di­tion to our stu­dents and past stu­dents, we are ho­n­oured to in­clude the Na­tion­al Po­lice Or­ches­tra of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who will en­ter­tain us in the sec­ond half of our pro­gramme.”

Din­di­al con­clud­ed with a re­minder of the evening’s sig­nif­i­cance: “As we be­gin, I in­vite every­one to pre­pare your­selves to be ful­ly im­mersed in mu­sic, song, and dance as we wel­come the Christ­mas sea­son. Let us re­mem­ber the true rea­son for our gath­er­ing tonight—for God so loved the world that He gave His on­ly Son. We cel­e­brate His birth with grat­i­tude.”