In­nis Fran­cis

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Singer, ac­tor, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, de­sign­er and cul­tur­al icon Mar­lon De Bique had breathed new life in­to the Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, as its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.

Yes­ter­day, the au­di­to­ri­um turned in­to the venue where De Bique’s rel­a­tives, friends and mem­bers of the cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ty gath­ered to say farewell at his fu­ner­al ser­vice.

De Bique, 45, died last Wednes­day af­ter a brief ill­ness.

Na­pari­ma Bowl chair­man Avion Crooks was among those who paid glow­ing trib­ute to De Bique.

She re­called that De Bique’s vi­sion for the Bowl dur­ing his four years in the seat as the CEO raised the stan­dards of the his­toric home for the arts.

“We knew we were in for a heavy trip with Mar­lon De Bique as CEO. There were no sub­tle changes, the changes were all bold, em­path­ic, in­cred­i­ble, and overt. It be­gan with paint af­ter years of se­date creams and browns ... over time vivid colour changes from one day to the next ... To say that Mar­lon had an eye for the dra­mat­ic is an un­der­state­ment,” Crooks said.

She con­tin­ued: “As Mar­lon en­tered the are­na here, COVID-19 tried to present hur­dles to his vi­sion. Mar­lon was not to be fought by a mere virus that was tak­ing down the rest of the en­tire world. “Non­sense! Na­pari­ma Bowl was one of the first na­tion­al spaces to be ready for busi­ness in the first ten­ta­tive steps af­ter the lock­down. He led the staff to con­tin­ue to be cre­ative to build and de­vel­op skills, to pre­pare for the next steps. We at the cul­tur­al soul of the south are grate­ful that we had a vi­sion­ary head to see us through those dark and dif­fi­cult times.”

De Bique’s sis­ter, Bernadette Vin­cent, de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy and re­mem­bered him as the well-man­nered, well-dressed boy who be­came a man of style and so­phis­ti­ca­tion.

Vin­cent said De Bique was first in­tro­duced to the Na­pari­ma Bowl by one of their broth­ers and the rest was his­to­ry.

She said: “As some have said, this can be de­scribed as a full cir­cle mo­ment be­ing at the helm of an in­sti­tu­tion where he saw his first per­for­mance and al­so a stage where he has per­formed many years ago … More present­ly, Mar­lon was host ex­tra­or­di­naire, he pro­vid­ed five-star treat­ment, and he was our chef, our or­gan­is­er, and con­nois­seur of the fine things. We can say he had the touch! It was as if every­thing he touched he turned it in­to some­thing of a high­er qual­i­ty.”

She said De Bique toured more than 70 coun­tries around the world and left his mark every­where he went.