SASCHA WIL­SON

Amaz­ing cre­ations dis­play­ing an as­sort­ment of bril­liant colours were por­trayed by young mas­quer­aders as they swarmed the streets of San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

From ba­bies in arms to teenagers, each decked off in their cos­tumes, they gave an en­er­getic and beau­ti­ful show, demon­strat­ing that Kid­dies Car­ni­val in San Fer­nan­do is alive and in good hands.

Twen­ty-five bands were reg­is­tered to cross the judg­ing point at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, one more than last year.

San Fer­nan­do Con­ven­er of Car­ni­val Coun­cil­lor Naigum Joseph was pleased with the smooth pace of the bands and their im­pres­sive pre­sen­ta­tions.

“If you check my Face­book posts, the best events I have gone so far is Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val where you see prop­er de­signs for chil­dren. They not gy­rat­ing, chil­dren ac­tu­al­ly jump up and en­joy­ing mas. It is not naked­ness, it is a beau­ti­ful use of colour, use of lo­cal ma­te­ri­als. Chil­dren mas, Car­ni­val, pan to me have ex­ceed­ed what most peo­ple would ex­pect.”

He boast­ed that a cos­tume por­tray­al from south placed third in the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Car­ni­val King this year. “Our stan­dard in cul­ture has ex­ceed­ed na­tion­al lev­els. Ex­tem­po King Bri­an Lon­don. In every as­pect of cul­ture, San Fer­nan­do has ex­ceed­ed.”

Con­grat­u­lat­ing CAL Skif­fle Bunch for plac­ing sixth in the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, he said San Fer­nan­do has rep­re­sent­ed in pan, mas and ca­lyp­so. “And it is time NCC gives us what we de­serve. Give us the fund­ing to push our cul­ture in San Fer­nan­do.”

This year saw a change in the Car­ni­val route due to the clo­sure of Skin­ner Park. Kick­ing off around noon, the bands pa­rad­ed from Roy­al Road to Cipero Street, to Sut­ton Street, on­to to Mu­cu­rapo Street, Li­brary Cor­ner and Har­ris Prom­e­nade. Small band JCE Mas Pro­duc­tions from Gran Cou­va was the first to cross the stage with their pre­sen­ta­tion Let’s Dance which fell in­to the tra­di­tion­al cat­e­go­ry.

Jump­ing up to the so­ca hits such as Couch Shell, Stage Gone Bad and Ruk­shun, one of the cat­e­gories was a trib­ute to pan leg­ends, in­clud­ing the late Ken “Pro­fes­sor” Philmore. Al­so cross­ing the stage un­der this ban­ner, were the Gran Cou­va Youth Club por­tray­ing The African Dancers and the Cou­va Youth Club with the Fan­cy Sailors.

Al­though the spec­ta­tors were few in num­bers, there was a steady flow of bands as the young rev­ellers proud­ly dis­played their cos­tumes. Cel­e­brat­ing 27 years of mas in San Fer­nan­do, the House of Jacqui’s left many in awe with its pre­sen­ta­tion of Iz­za Trin­ba­go Thing.

Shim­mer­ing bright­ly un­der the sun rays, the pre­sen­ta­tion show­cased dif­fer­ent as­pects of the twin-is­land in­clud­ing the amaz­ing sun­sets, the pitch lake and the oceans.

Dif­fer­ent types of fish and even an aquar­i­um were al­so seen jump­ing up in the street dur­ing the por­tray­al of My Aquar­i­um from R&T Kids Crew from La Brea. Out of the 25 bands, five were medi­um bands while the oth­ers were small bands.