Pe­ter Ray Blood

George God­dard re­mem­bered With Car­ni­val now com­plet­ed, dust­ed off and put away, De Fos­to's ca­lyp­so Pan in the At­mos­phere came to life last week­end with much ac­tiv­i­ty by the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Pan Trin­ba­go staged an­oth­er suc­cess­ful Champs in Steel Plus (Champs in Con­cert) last Sat­ur­day at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of- Spain. From very ear­ly the venue was filled with vis­i­tors from over­seas, many ea­ger to see and hear the sea­son's cham­pi­ons of pan, ca­lyp­so and mas. They were not to be dis­ap­point­ed.

This is the 33rd year that Pan Trin­ba­go is stag­ing this pro­duc­tion, one which has the dis­tinc­tion of one of the very few cul­tur­al events staged lo­cal­ly to be­gin at its ad­ver­tised sched­uled time of start­ing.

This year was no dif­fer­ent as prompt­ly on the stroke of 8 pm, with flag­man HP Di­az, HBM stand­ing rigid­ly hold­ing the na­tion­al flag aloft, young pan play­ers from Ju­nior Panora­ma (Pri­ma­ry Schools) cham­pi­on band St Paul's An­gli­can School played the na­tion­al an­them on tenors. Af­ter an in­novo­ca­tion by Urslin Black­ette, ra­dio per­son­al­i­ties Ken Sim­mons and Sharon Pitt got pro­ceed­ings on the way by in­tro­duc­ing St Paul's An­gli­can School, the night's first act, to play Blue Boy's So­ca Bap­tist.

Apart from St Paul's, eight 2014 cham­pi­on steel­bands per­formed on the night, in­clud­ing Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, Pan El­ders, Su­per No­vas, San Juan East Side Sym­pho­ny, Pan Jam­mers, Ju­niors bp Rene­gades and Prov­i­dence/QRC. Win­ners of the Text to Win Peo­ple's Choice com­pe­ti­tion–Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille and Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars–al­so made guest ap­pear­ances. This year's pro­duc­tion fea­tured some of the finest ex­po­nents of mas, ca­lyp­so and chut­ney so­ca on one stage pro­vid­ing a fit­ting end to this year's fes­ti­val.

These in­clud­ed se­nior and ju­nior King and Queen of Car­ni­val, in­clu­sive of Quars Al Sa­hara Desert Sting (Wade Madray); Za­ma­ra Mi­rage of the Oa­sis (Pe­o­la Marchan); Promise of the Rain­bow (Gyasi Philbert); and, An­gel of the Buc­coo (Cyan Lue Shue), as well as the "most out­stand­ing mas pre­sen­ta­tion of 2014," in­clud­ing pre­sen­ta­tions by Red Cross/Down­town Car­ni­val Ju­nior Band of the Year Ros­alind Gabriel's Colour My Cul­ture and Ju­nior Car­ni­val Band of the Year Car­ni­val Ba­bies' Colour Me Car­ni­val.

Al­so mak­ing the play­bill were some of the sea­son's hottest champs and con­tenders in­clud­ing the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Rod­er­ick "Chucky" Gor­don; Po­lit­i­cal Com­men­tary win­ner Mr Shak; Young King Monarch Bevon St Clair; Ca­lyp­so Queen Can­dace Robin­son; Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ronal­do Lon­don; Ju­nior So­ca Monarch Sasha-Ann Moses; Ex­tem­pore Monarch Bri­an Lon­don and run­ner-up Lin­go; Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Kris "KI "Per­sad; and, In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch run­ners-up Farmer Nap­py and Iw­er.

Kel­ly Green & Har­mo­ny pro­vid­ed mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment.

Pan ac­tion ac­tu­al­ly com­menced from as ear­ly as Fri­day when Pan­i­cle Com­pa­ny host­ed the in­au­gur­al edi­tion of the George Son­ny God­dard Town Hall Meet­ings, at Star­lift Com­plex, off Mu­cu­rapo Road, Wood­brook. The late God­dard was the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Steel­bands­men (NATTS) and Pan Trin­ba­go.

Fa­cil­i­ta­tors of the dis­cus­sions in­clud­ed George David God­dard, his broth­er George Ger­ard and Emile Bor­de. Among the ex­perts and in­tel­lec­tu­als mod­er­at­ing pro­ceed­ings were Hugh Bor­de, Royce Rus­sell, Dr Bri­an Copeland, Dr Kim John­son, Di­ane Duprey, Kei­th May­nard and Vanes­sa Headley.

The event was at­tend­ed by a num­ber of pan play­ers and af­fi­ciona­dos, in­clud­ing Mar­tin Daly, Ray Funk, Bertel Git­tens, Rod­er­ick Tou­s­saint, Tom­my Critchlow, Steve Tay­lor, Dou­glas Williams, Ger­ard Clarke and Em­mon Berke­ley.

Through­out the day, dis­cus­sions were in­tense and poignant. Some of the top­ics ad­dressed in­clud­ed Defin­ing the Steel­band Move­ment and the Pol­i­tics of Pan and How we bal­ance steel­band tra­di­tion with in­no­va­tion in the 21st Cen­tu­ry.

Sup­pos­ed­ly a five-pan­el event just three were com­plet­ed, caus­ing the or­gan­is­ers to make this ex­er­cise and on­go­ing, year-round fo­rum.

When an ar­ti­cle by Trinidad born In­dra Dwar­ka-Koch in No­vem­ber, 2013 about the launch­ing of Car­ni­val in the town of Niedern­hausen in Ger­many was pub­lished, no one re­alised what a wave of sen­sa­tion it would cre­ate.

The Car­ni­val Coun­cil of Eleven was so im­pressed that they in­vit­ed Koch to be guest of ho­n­our at its Car­ni­val Gala at the town En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre, held on Feb­ru­ary 1. At this Car­ni­val Gala the T&T Guardian was praised by the com­mit­tee's pres­i­dent, Mar­tin Kun­st, for putting Niedern­hausen on the oth­er side of the world. The com­mit­tee pres­i­dent him­self has fond mem­o­ries of be­ing in Trinidad with his par­ents as a child.

The Car­ni­val Coun­cil usu­al­ly con­sists of a group of 11 men from the town, main­ly pro­fes­sion­als rang­ing from doc­tors, lawyers, busi­ness­men and trades peo­ple. This in­sti­tu­tion start­ed in the 19th cen­tu­ry with its roots go­ing back to France. In this main­ly male-dic­tat­ing world, the coun­cil plans events and so­cial func­tions for car­ni­val and the lo­cal char­i­ties.

At the En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre, artists of var­i­ous gen­res brought the fes­ti­val of over 500 mas­quer­aders to a hi­lar­i­ous peak. The lat­er the evening the high­er the spir­its soared, and the more ex­cit­ed the crowd be­came. Whether it was the ven­tril­o­quist with his di­nosaur, a play back Elvis Pres­ley, lo­cal sports group per­form­ing their ac­ro­bat­ic skills, Brazil­ian rhythm dancers or even the bit­ter satire of both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics, the au­di­ence got the best of Niedern­hausen show­biz.

Even the new young and dy­nam­ic May­or of the town of Niedern­hausen, Joachim Reimann, took time off to ac­cept an orig­i­nal clip­ping of the T&T Guardian's ar­ti­cle "Launch­ing of Ger­man Car­ni­val Sea­son" from Koch. This shows the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of con­vey­ing the Ger­man cul­ture to the peo­ple of T&T.

The Coun­cil of Eleven and the May­or of the Town of Niedern­hausen pro­fuse­ly thanked the T&T Guardian for the pub­li­ca­tion and ex­po­sure, with some of them hop­ing to be in Trinidad to ac­tu­al­ly ex­pe­ri­ence Car­ni­val 2015.