Yvonne Webb

In an at­tempt to re­vive the cul­tur­al land­scape of Siparia, the Di­a­ton­ic Steel Or­ches­tra and Pan In­sti­tute will hold its first ever Sin­gle Pan-on-the-Move com­pe­ti­tion in the Prime Min­is­ter's con­stituen­cy on May 14.The com­pe­ti­tion, which will be held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and Pan Trin­ba­go, will see a to­tal of 15 bands vy­ing for $100,000 in cash prizes.Di­a­ton­ic's di­rec­tor/man­ag­er Kei­th By­er said the ob­jec­tive was for the com­pe­ti­tion to be­come an an­nu­al event, sim­i­lar to what ob­tains in the Point Fortin Bor­ough cel­e­bra­tion.By­er said Siparia used to be a leader in cul­ture, but the ad­vent of the Point Fortin Bor­ough cel­e­bra­tion, 31 years ago, saw the demise of the Siparia fete. He said they hoped the pan com­pe­ti­tion would help to at­tract more vis­i­tors to the com­mu­ni­ty, in­crease eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties, pro­mote in­ter­nal tourism, while in­still­ing a sense of pride and cel­e­brat­ing their in­dige­nous her­itage.

"Siparia fete, an an­nu­al com­mu­ni­ty fes­ti­val built around the cel­e­bra­tion of the mys­te­ri­ous ap­pear­ance of the pa­tron Saint La Div­ina Pas­to­ra, at­tract­ed na­tion­wide par­tic­i­pa­tion pri­mar­i­ly be­cause of the an­cil­lary ac­tiv­i­ties or­gan­ised on the oc­ca­sion of the fes­ti­val," By­er said.By­er, a for­mer Pan Trin­ba­go vice-pres­i­dent, said they opt­ed for tra­di­tion­al bands in or­der to com­ple­ment rather than con­flict or com­pete with Point Fortin con­ven­tion­al bands com­pe­ti­tion.The 15 par­tic­i­pat­ing bands will each re­ceive an ap­pear­ance fee of $5,000.The bands play­ing the best re­li­gious song and best ca­lyp­so will each re­ceive a first prize of $3,000, while the band judged Best Pan on the Move will re­ceive a cash prize of $10,000.