Pe­ter Bal­roop

All sys­tems are go for Car­ni­val 2011, ac­cord­ing to Arts & Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters (Gyp­sy).

Speak­ing off the record at a re­cep­tion for cul­tur­al per­son­al­i­ties last week Fri­day at Knowsley Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, the min­is­ter said a new Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) Board was to be in­stalled soon. The man short­list­ed to be the new chair­man is Ken­ny De Sil­va, a for­mer chair­man of the Com­mis­sion. Up to last Wednes­day af­ter­noon, how­ev­er, De Sil­va said he had re­ceived no in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment. The com­po­si­tion of the new board au­gurs well for C2K11 es­pe­cial­ly as oth­er names men­tioned in­clude ex­pe­ri­enced vet­er­ans in Car­ni­val, in­clud­ing Don Sylvester and Cyril Col­lier, in ad­di­tion to the heads of Car­ni­val's Spe­cial In­ter­est groups (SIGs), in­clud­ing Kei­th Di­az (Pan Trin­ba­go); Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Bro Re­sis­tance), (Tu­co); and Wren­rick Brown (NC­BA).

Pe­ters al­so said the Pa­rade of the Bands com­pe­ti­tion would be re­turn­ing in­side the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, its tra­di­tion­al home, in­stead of pro­ceed­ing along the out­side south­ern perime­ter of the venue. He added that a main stage would be re­turned, with north and grand view­ing stands. Him­self be­ing the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch of 1997, and a mul­ti­ple cham­pi­on in ex­tem­pore com­pe­ti­tion, Pe­ters said there was every like­li­hood that next year ca­lyp­so­ni­ans would be re­quired to sing two se­lec­tions for the na­tion­al monarch com­pe­ti­tion, a move wel­comed by many of the vet­er­an ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

Con­tact­ed on Wednes­day, Tu­co pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Bro Re­sis­tance), with a chuck­le in his voice, said: "As far as I am con­cerned this de­ci­sion can on­ly be tak­en by the mem­ber­ship of Tu­co and the ju­ry's still out on that. We are dis­cussing it, though." Con­cur­ring with Re­sis­tance was for­mer na­tion­al monarch Michael Os­una (Sug­ar Aloes), who said: "While I con­sid­er this is a pro­gres­sive move, it is not a de­ci­sion for any min­is­ter to make. On­ly Tu­co can make this de­ci­sion. But, I am for the two songs as it will sep­a­rate the men from the boys in the com­pe­ti­tion."

Ex­tem­po­ra­ma

Be­fore C2K11 comes around, how­ev­er, Pe­ters has giv­en his en­dorse­ment to this evening's Ex­tem­po­ra­ma be­ing held at SWW­TU Hall, on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, from 8 pm. A vir­tu­al clash be­tween the best ex­po­nents of ex­tem­pore, rep­re­sent­ing the three zones of Tu­co, Pe­ters af­firmed the event was not a com­pe­ti­tion, but a chance for "brag­ging rights in the genre." Tonight's zon­al war is billed as "De Coun­cil­lor vs De Min­is­ter" as many peo­ple ex­pect it to come down to a face-off be­tween the arts min­is­ter and COP Coun­cil­lor Phillip Mur­ray (Black Sage). Wide­ly re­gard­ed to be the world's best ex­tem­pore artistes, Pe­ters said he didn't in­tend tak­ing any pris­on­ers tonight as he knew each con­tes­tant would be gun­ning for him.

In mirth, he said: "It will be fire in town on Fri­day night, and I in­tend get­ting them be­fore they get me." Al­so in the fray tonight are Con­tender, Fire Ball, Gary Ranks, Black Sage (North); Lin­go, La­dy Africa, Shel­don John, Dion Di­az (East); Bri­an Lon­don, Abebele, Short Pants, Gyp­sy (South). Pe­ters was com­pli­men­ta­ry of the young peo­ple ven­tur­ing in­to the realm of ex­tem­pore, sin­gling out Fire Ball and Bun­ji Gar­lin, adding that they brought their own unique but en­ter­tain­ing treat­ment to the art form. Host­ed by Mervyn Telfer and Shirlaine Hen­drick­son, this evening's show al­so fea­tures for­mer ca­lyp­so monarch Re­la­tor, with mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment by Moods.

Tunes for Panora­ma 2011

As far as pan and the 2011 Na­tion­al Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion are con­cerned, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans have al­ready com­plet­ed their "pan songs," in­clud­ing De Orig­i­nal De Fos­to Him­self, Crazy and Eu­nice Pe­ters.

Four hot tracks for Panora­ma 2011 are:

�2 In She Rain­o­ra­ma sung by De Fos­to–com­posed by Win­ston Scar­bor­ough;

�2 Des­per­a­does Com­ing Down sung by De Fos­to–com­posed by Win­ston Scar­bor­ough;

�2 A Rag­ing Storm sung by De­Fos­to–com­posed by Win­ston Scar­bor­ough;�

�2 Per­cy on Me sung by Crazy–com­posed by Ed­win Ay­oung & Wins­ford Devine.

Ca­lyp­so tents

The ca­lyp­so tents are al­so gear­ing up for a bumper C2K11 sea­son.

Speak­ing with Pulse on Wednes­day, Ca­lyp­so Re­vue pro­duc­er Sug­ar Aloes said all sys­tems were go for the sea­son. He said au­di­tions would com­mence on No­vem­ber 14 and con­tin­ue every Sun­day, at 11 am, at a venue to be an­nounced. The re­gion­al tents op­er­at­ed by Tu­co are al­so in their fi­nal plan­ning stages, as well as the Icons tent op­er­at­ed by an­oth­er for­mer na­tion­al and In­de­pen­dence monarch, We­st­on Rawl­ins (Cro Cro).