Pe­ter Bal­roop

Call it the tug of mas–and it was on show from the word go in Be­tween The Trees–the small band pro­duced by Rose­mary Perkins for the Red Cross Chil­dren's Car­ni­val 2010 yes­ter­day. The first sec­tion, com­pris­ing tiny chil­dren in winged cos­tumes, came on stage at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in bril­liant sun­shine, each hold­ing on to a rope which adults used to guide them around the stage. They were too small to dance in time to the mu­sic, but quick­ly caught on that they must mim­ic the adults guid­ing them. But it was not tug of war, just the tra­di­tion­al launch­ing of the first big mas event for the Car­ni­val sea­son.

In a sense it was nine days to Ra­ma, when the adults will be do­ing their thing on the streets and on stage through­out T&T for Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, next week. In­tri­cate cos­tumes were the or­der of the day as some 112 in­di­vid­u­als, rang­ing in age from babes in arms to eight years, took to the stage to start the show in a smooth­ly or­gan­ised event that was a cred­it to chair­man Michelle Rol­ing­son-Pierre and her com­mit­tee.Then it was the turn of some 24 small bands, with up to 60 mem­bers be­fore some 58 more in­di­vid­u­als, boys and girls be­tween nine and 11, had their mo­ment in the sun to show that their mas genes ran deep.

They did not dis­ap­point, be­cause the phlanx of judges wore a per­plexed look as they pon­dered how to al­lot the scores of prizes on of­fer from gen­er­ous spon­sors that in­clud­ed Dig­i­cel, Blue Wa­ters, bpTT, Courts, Carib/Smal­ta, Flavourite, Bermudez and British Gas. Sev­en medi­um bands with up to 150 mem­bers pranced across the stage af­ter which about 64 in­di­vid­ual boys and girls be­tween 12 and 15 bid to catch the nod of the judges. The cur­tain came down yes­ter­day evening with four bands in the large cat­e­go­ry, each com­pris­ing over 150 mem­bers, sought Car­ni­val glo­ry. It was a show of class, which as­sured that T&T Car­ni­val was in rock sol­id hands for the next gen­er­a­tion.

LEFT: ?She was like a punch line with her smil­ing face from Tell Me A Sto­ry.

RIGHT: ?She was a joy to be­hold as her cos­tume caught the rays of the mid­day sun.

ABOVE: ?Fe­male parang singers From the Suc­cess Laven­tille Com­pos­ite band From The Hills of Paramin