Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) South Cen­tral Zone is ap­peal­ing for sup­port to ex­pand its Ca­lyp­so Work­shop for young peo­ple, in an at­tempt to pre­serve one of the old­est cul­tur­al art forms in the coun­try.

The pro­gramme was part of the ac­tiv­i­ties in cel­e­bra­tion of Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month, which is ob­served an­nu­al­ly in Oc­to­ber.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at Skin­ner Park in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day, where a men­tor­ship ses­sion was held with young peo­ple, TU­CO trustee Ann Mau­reen Don­awa said that as­pect of the pro­gramme was her brain­child.

Be­ing the moth­er of a ca­lyp­son­ian who start­ed off from a young age, she said the pro­gramme seeks to men­tor young per­form­ers, teach­ing them stage tech­niques, mi­cro­phone con­trol, and per­for­mance con­fi­dence. She in­vit­ed sea­soned ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and en­ter­tain­ers to share their jour­neys from ju­nior per­form­ers to cel­e­brat­ed artists.

TU­CO vice pres­i­dent and South-Cen­tral Zone chair­man Steve “Ras Kom­man­da” Pas­call said the or­gan­i­sa­tion wants to ex­pand the pro­gramme to oth­er parts of the coun­try as they seek to teach and make the art­form ac­ces­si­ble to the younger gen­er­a­tion.

“What we try­ing to do is let peo­ple know that ca­lyp­so could be a ca­reer,” he said, un­der­scor­ing the im­por­tance of sell­ing the cen­tu­ry-old art­form to the younger gen­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, he said they need fund­ing and sup­port.

“We would like if the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion could part­ner with us, as well as the Min­istry of Cul­ture, be­cause in every­thing, it takes a cer­tain amount of fund­ing and right now we would like to car­ry it, not on­ly to us here in the south. We don’t want to keep it in se­cret; we would like to go cen­tral. We will like to go Port-of-Spain, even if we can branch off in To­ba­go.”

He said the pro­gramme has al­ready reached stu­dents at Pleas­antville East Sec­ondary, Mon Re­pos RC and Moru­ga Sec­ondary, with a ses­sion at Point Fortin sched­uled for this week.

Among the in­vit­ed guests were for­mer Ex­tem­po Monarch Bri­an Lon­don, Daniel Melville, Ron­del Don­awa, Vic­to­ria Coop­er-Rahim, Ron­dell Don­awa and Miss Uni­verse T&T sec­ond run­ner up Mick­ela Si­mon.