CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

The Lord Kitch­en­er Au­di­to­ri­um of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Port of Spain came alive with youth tal­ent last Sat­ur­day (May 25, 2024), as 32 young peo­ple per­formed for the quar­ter­fi­nals for “Youth on Stage – Na­tion­al Youth Fes­ti­val and Tal­ent Search – North Edi­tion”.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) said this ini­tia­tive at­tract­ed hun­dreds of youths at au­di­tions be­tween March and April and nar­rowed the num­ber down to 62 quar­ter-fi­nal­ists.

The Min­istry re­ports that Artistes com­prised singers of mul­ti­ple gen­res in­clud­ing Gospel, R&B, Reg­gae and more. The youth dancers spanned the spec­trum of In­di­an Clas­si­cal, Afro Beat, Folk Dance and more. There were al­so sev­er­al spo­ken word artistes with orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions.

"All 32 per­form­ers for the Quar­ter-Fi­nals – North Edi­tion showed ex­per­tise and com­fort that demon­strat­ed why they were se­lect­ed for this round,” the Min­istry said.

Ac­cord­ing to the youth min­istry, there were a num­ber of no­table acts that had the au­di­ence more than en­gaged dur­ing their per­for­mances.

Of the dancers, 12-year-old Sabri Seep­er­sad per­formed a tra­di­tion­al Bharatanatyam dance that showed a mas­tery of the art form at her ten­der age.

Sabri lat­er re­turned to the stage with An­to­nio St. Vin­cent, 26, as Afro King­dom.

“This dy­nam­ic dance duo left the au­di­ence cheer­ing wild­ly, as they danced to an Afro Beat mix,” the youth min­istry said. “Dance act Denisia Latch­man, 31 was a crowd favourite as she show­cased mul­ti­ple styles com­bined with quick out­fit changes."

The Min­istry al­so said there were sev­er­al singers on the cards on Sat­ur­day evening.

"The ex­cep­tion­al per­form­ers in­clud­ed Javon Mur­ray, 11, who demon­strat­ed that he is a ris­ing star in the Ca­lyp­so world. The reg­gae genre was well rep­re­sent­ed by Rhon­da Prued­homme-Mc Laren, who goes by the name ‘Rhon­da Love.’ Her orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion Jah Love had the au­di­ence singing along with her. The evening had a num­ber of vo­cal pow­er­hous­es in­clud­ing Aaliyah Camp­bell, 22; Jynee­va Mo­hamed, 23, and Sha­nia Am­bey, 24. In the mix, there was Bran­don Pierre, 19, who sang a John Leg­end clas­sic that had the ladies swoon­ing while At­i­ba Chance, 31, had the au­di­ence singing along as he put his own spin on Stand By Me."

The state­ment added that there were al­so some per­form­ers who brought their dis­tinct and orig­i­nal style of mu­sic to Youth on Stage:

"These artistes of note were Malique ‘Kid Volt’ Camp­bell, 24, (broth­er of fel­low com­peti­tor Aaliyah Camp­bell) who sang an in­spi­ra­tional dance­hall piece Fight. Sher­i­fa Sel­man, 25, played the gui­tar to an acoustic ver­sion of Bob Mar­ley’s Stir It Up."

It added: "There were a num­ber of unique acts which in­clud­ed Ejay the Band – a four-man band –that could have been mis­tak­en for guest artistes. Isa­iah Stokes, 22, a Stunt Per­former gave an en­er­getic jump rope per­for­mance with up­beat mu­si­cal tracks to ac­com­pa­ny him. Spo­ken Word Artiste Geron Ruiz, 21 was the name on many pa­trons’ lips as he de­liv­ered his orig­i­nal piece When I Grown Up, which traced a jour­ney from boy­hood to man­hood.”

Head Judge Kim­my Stoute-Robin­son, re­marked on the qual­i­ty of the per­for­mances.

“The pletho­ra and stan­dard of the tal­ent was very, very im­pres­sive,” she ob­served. “It was ev­i­dent that all the con­tes­tants ap­plied the judges’ au­di­tion cri­tique to en­hance their per­for­mance. It will tru­ly be dif­fi­cult to pick just 20 per­sons to ad­vance to the semi­fi­nal round.”

The “Youth on Stage – Na­tion­al Youth Fes­ti­val and Tal­ent Search” is an av­enue for young, as­pir­ing artistes, ages 10 to 35 years, to dis­play and de­vel­op their tal­ents, the MYDNS points out.

It notes that through­out the tal­ent search process, par­tic­i­pants re­ceive guid­ance, re­sources, and in­dus­try in­sights geared to­ward help­ing them nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of start­ing a ca­reer in the cre­ative and cul­tur­al sec­tors.

From March to April, the MYDNS host­ed 11 au­di­tions in Ari­ma, Cou­va, Diego Mar­tin, La Hor­quet­ta, Ma­yaro, Moru­ga, Point Fortin, Port of Spain and San Fer­nan­do.