Geisha Kow­lessar

A de­ci­sion by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion's (NC­BA) judges to deduct points from a re­port­ed 25 large bands for fail­ing to start at their first judg­ing point in Wood­brook, is threat­en­ing to cast a shad­ow over Neal and Massy Trinidad All Stars' Band of the Year vic­to­ry.In fact, the de­ci­sion may have to be re­scind­ed, as sev­er­al af­fect­ed bands yes­ter­day sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to take the mat­ter to court if the NC­BA does not pro­vide them with their score­sheets, nul­li­fy the de­ci­sion and re­count the scores.Trinidad All Stars was yes­ter­day named the NC­BA's Band of the Year win­ner for its pre­sen­ta­tion of Sailors on Shore Leave at a Trop­i­cal Fi­es­ta. The band, which lost this year's Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nal by one point to Phase II Pan Groove, scored 2,365 points, beat­ing Pa­parrazi Car­ni­val's Cen­ter­stage (2,048) and Lega­cy's Na­ture's Touch (1,976) in­to sec­ond and third re­spec­tive­ly. The re­sult al­so marked the first time in decades a tra­di­tion­al steel­band had won the large band mas cat­e­go­ry.

How­ev­er, Tri­ni Rev­ellers band­leader Dave Cameron was among the first to query the re­sults af­ter learn­ing their por­tray­al of The Sul­tan's Palace (1,585) had placed fourth. While con­grat­u­lat­ing Trinidad All Stars on the win, Cameron said he sent a let­ter to the chief judge ask­ing for his score­sheet, as he be­lieved there were dis­crep­an­cies in the judg­ing, and would de­cid­ed his next move there­after."I can't un­der­stand how the con­ven­tion­al bands could be so far back, es­pe­cial­ly when Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra have been com­ing out with the same thing every year. But I can't do any­thing but con­grat­u­late All Stars be­cause they won," Cameron said."I in this busi­ness long time. I be­lieved I may have lost some marks, but the NC­BA don't come out and tell you any­thing. They just say, 'Take that,' and I am not tak­ing that."How­ev­er, the T&T Guardian sub­se­quent­ly learned that sev­er­al bands had been de­duct­ed as much as 50 points for not start­ing at Adam Smith Square, Wood­brook, which the NC­BA des­ig­nat­ed as the first judg­ing point along a new route this year.

25 bands af­fect­ed

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, band­leader Ros­alind Gabriel con­firmed her band was among 25 which start­ed in down­town PoS. She said Dune Ali's Car­ni­val Play­ers Stephen De­r­ick's D' Mi­das T&T and Vanes­sa Forde's Clas­six Pro­duc­tions were al­so de­duct­ed points for start­ing down­town. She said she would have a clear­er idea to­day of the ex­act num­ber of bands af­fect­ed.Gabriel ad­mit­ted she did not fol­low the NC­BA's des­ig­nat­ed route, which start­ed in Wood­brook and end­ed at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. In­stead, she opt­ed to use the route pre­scribed by Port-of-Spain may­or Ray­mond Tim Kee, which start­ed down­town and end­ed at the Sa­van­nah."If you dis­obey the route you lose 50 points. I am not in the re­sults any­where from one to five or even one to six. Every year I win a ti­tle, so for me not plac­ing at all is im­pos­si­ble. I am not the on­ly one who suf­fered this fate," Gabriel said.She said her de­ci­sion to start down­town was based on a num­ber of is­sues, in­clud­ing mas­quer­aders hav­ing to trav­el to Wood­brook up­on reach­ing Port-of-Spain.

"We have bands com­ing from as far as Ma­yaro and it is un­fair for them when they reach City Gate to leave down­town to trav­el with their cos­tumes and what have you to Wood­brook."The wind fac­tor was an­oth­er is­sue, traf­fic con­ges­tion and Wood­brook res­i­dents hav­ing to un­der­go an­oth­er day of Car­ni­val," Gabriel added.She said she re­tained at­tor­ney Michael Quam­i­na and in­tends to ob­tain a copy of her score­sheet be­fore con­sid­er­ing her op­tions.Al­so con­tact­ed last evening, pres­i­dent of the T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion Ger­ard Weekes con­firmed sev­er­al of his mem­bers were af­fect­ed by the de­ci­sion. He said while his band was not af­fect­ed, as he fol­lowed the pre­scribed route, it should not mat­ter how bands like Gabriel's got to the Sa­van­nah once they passed all the judg­ing points.

"It doesn't mat­ter whether she (Gabriel) start­ed in down­town or at Wood­brook. Once she got to the sa­van­nah she should have been equal­ly judged and she has a right to re­quest her score­sheet," Weekes said."For Tri­ni Rev­ellers it's a dif­fer­ent case. They are re­quest­ing their score­sheet to de­ter­mine where they lost points and why."He added, "Some­one needs to say who are the judges and what cri­te­ria they used. ...The NC­BA must be held ac­count­able." He said while he had noth­ing against All Stars win­ning, he won­dered how they could emerge on top in the cre­ativ­i­ty cat­e­go­ry."What they did cer­tain­ly was by no means cre­ative. Buy­ing a sailor hat and putting two ap­ples in it is not cre­ative. That says a lot, es­pe­cial­ly to us who have spent many tire­less hours pro­duc­ing," Weekes said.