?Shal­iza Has­sanali

High winds at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah caused two Queen of Car­ni­val com­peti­tors to take a tum­ble on stage thwart­ing their chances of mov­ing for­ward to the semi­fi­nal round. Among the hap­less par­tic­i­pants who lost bal­ance in the Pre­lim­i­nar­ies of the King and Queen of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion be­cause of the pow­er­ful gusts were Queens, Tama­ra Al­leyne-Git­tens por­tray­ing D'Mor­ro­can Fan Dancer from the band Spice Route and Keisha Steel­ing with the de­pic­tion Spir­it of the Drums. Or­gan­ised by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, the show which at­tract­ed a small crowd on Thurs­day saw 43 Queens and 49 Kings, grac­ing the stage in their cos­tumes, some of which lacked cre­ativ­i­ty, orig­i­nal­i­ty and at times did not ap­pear in time­ly fash­ion. Min­utes in­to the Queen seg­ment, Steel­ing had to be as­sist­ed off-stage af­ter the wind tore in­to the front of her cos­tume. Then, short­ly af­ter­wards Al­leyne-Git­tens por­tray­ing a glit­ter­ing and glam­orous fan dancer suf­fered the same fate as the breeze cou­pled with the weight of the cos­tume caused her to buck­le.

Show­ing a fight­ing spir­it, the mas­quer­ad­er got to her feet and start­ed chip­ping to the mu­sic for a few sec­onds, but buck­led un­der pres­sure again and col­lapsed with her $75,000 cos­tume. Writhing in pain, Al­leyne-Git­tens was placed on a stretch­er by mem­bers of her camp and tak­en to a mo­bile clin­ic back­stage, where she was ex­am­ined and treat­ed for mi­nor bruis­es to her right leg. Yes­ter­day Al­leyne-Git­tens said she knows her fate rests in the hands of the judges. "I can on­ly hope for the best,'"she said in a tele­phone in­ter­view ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing. By lunch time, Al­leyne-Git­tens found out that she did not qual­i­fy for the semis, which plunged Spice's camp in­to gloom. This is Spice's sec­ond year in Car­ni­val. Steel­ing al­so did not get be­yond the pre­lims. Twen­ty Queens and Kings will move on to the se­mi fi­nals which are ex­pect­ed to take place this week. How­ev­er, the por­tray­al that brought lo­cal and for­eign pa­trons alike to their feet was Bri­an Mac Far­lane's Queen Sev­el Nicholls por­tray­ing Dame Gwo Bun­da.

Parad­ing as the tra­di­tion­al Dame Lor­raine cos­tume on six foot stilts, Nicholls dressed in a shim­mer­ing bronze-coloured dress, which hugged her in­flat­ed chest­line and ex­tend­ed rear, teased the au­di­ence with fan­cy foot­work and en­er­getic spir­it. Mac Far­lane's Queen and King both topped their cat­e­gories. Re­mark­ably, Mac Far­lane fab­ri­cat­ed both his Queen and King in three weeks. "I had the con­cept and de­sign in my heads for months, but be­cause I had to work for the Sum­mit and CHOGM I start­ed mak­ing the cos­tumes on­ly three weeks ago", the de­sign­er said. Joan Mo­hammed's Queen of D Desert Sun was al­so a favourite, while Sed­ley An­toine who de­pict­ed D' Beast Mas­ter al­so re­ceived lusty ap­plause. Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, who at­tend­ed the show heaped prais­es on Al­leyne-Git­tens for her brava­do and courage. "My heart went out for her.

I am so sor­ry that she fell. It is re­al­ly a beau­ti­ful cos­tume. To me, you have to ex­pect any­thing on stage." Mac Don­ald said she was im­pressed with the cos­tumes, in­sist­ing that Car­ni­val is in safe hands. "I am be­gin­ning to un­der­stand the in­no­v­a­tive­ness of our peo­ple. Over­all, I think the show was quite good." Of all the Queens, Mac Don­ald said Mac Far­lane's was the one to beat. ?The pre­lim­i­nary round of the King and Queen of Car­ni­val took place at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Thurs­day night. In all 43 queens and 49 kings graced the stage.

ABOVE: Chro­mat­ic Re­flec­tions por­trayed by Joan Mo­hammed was a favourite with the crowd.

ABOVE: Rose­marie Ku­ru Jages­sar with her fan­cy In­di­an cos­tume Wa­ka-Nisha-The scared Wa­ter Bear­er.

3) Rose­marie Ku­ru Jages­sar with her fan­cy In­di­an cos­tume Wa­ka-Nisha-The scared Wa­ter Bear­er.

4) Ger­ard Weeks de­picts Drag­on Can't Dance, a Brain Mac Far­lane cre­ation from the band Res­ur­rec­tion The Mas.

5) Sav­it­ri Ho­lassie por­trays Jew­el Sun Bird from the band What a Won­der­ful Day.

6) Theophilus Sim­mons de­picts Tipu Sul­tan from the band Masala.

7) Sed­ley An­toine's cos­tume D' Beast Mas­ter from the band Trib­ute was well re­ceived by pa­trons.