Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

In ad­di­tion to a record of aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence and crick­et­ing ac­co­lades, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege Ch­agua­nas has al­so earned the rep­u­ta­tion of hav­ing one of cen­tral Trinidad’s pre­mier all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val events.

The col­lege’s Evolve fete, or­gan­ised by its past stu­dents as­so­ci­a­tion, has steadi­ly grown in size and pres­tige over the years be­com­ing a ma­jor event on the Ch­agua­nas Car­ni­val cal­en­dar.

This year’s cel­e­bra­tion was two-fold as it marked the 65th an­niver­sary of the col­lege’s past stu­dents as­so­ci­a­tion and was held for the first time on the school’s field in­stead of its car park, of­fer­ing pa­trons a more spa­cious area to groove to the mu­sic while min­gling with friends.

How­ev­er, the event not on­ly served as a trib­ute to the col­lege’s lega­cy but al­so a cel­e­bra­tion of the wider Ch­agua­nas com­mu­ni­ty, at­tract­ing pop­u­lar me­dia per­son­al­i­ties, busi­ness lead­ers, in­flu­encers and aca­d­e­mics for a night of so­ca and so­cial­is­ing.

Pres­i­dent of the school’s past pupils as­so­ci­a­tion Joshua Phillip said the in­tro­duc­tion of a cool­er sec­tion of­fered a more cost-ef­fec­tive op­tion to join the fun.

“We changed the en­tire lay­out this year and the ad­di­tion of a cool­er sec­tion was a first for our brand and I think we’ve had an ex­cel­lent re­sponse to that, so we will take note of it and tweak it as we con­tin­ue to evolve in terms of what we can of­fer,” he said

“A lot of peo­ple have been mes­sag­ing me and ask­ing if we would re­al­ly be go­ing on the col­lege field and how we were able to get that done but the school be­lieved in our vi­sion and un­der­stood that if the fete has to be im­pact­ful to the school, it has to grow.”

PRO Dale Lutch­man said the event was a re­sound­ing suc­cess and the build-up and an­tic­i­pa­tion was ev­i­dent from the so­cial me­dia en­gage­ment of past stu­dents and partiers in gen­er­al. He gave an es­ti­mate of rough­ly 1600 pa­trons at­tend­ing the event.

“The col­lege has been a pil­lar of the Ch­agua­nas com­mu­ni­ty first and fore­most for its role in ed­u­ca­tion and a place that breeds schol­ar­ship win­ners, so need­less to say we work hard and par­ty just as hard,” he said

The fete start­ed prompt­ly at 5 pm and the first pa­trons to ar­rive were not left idle for long as live per­for­mances from Col­lege Boy Jesse and Jadel set the pace for the evening.

As dark­ness fell, the tem­po hit high gear as Pre­sen­ta­tion alum Chro­mat­ics (Richard Raj-Ku­mar) thrilled au­di­ences with his word­play and freestyle an­tics, be­fore in­tro­duc­ing chut­ney so­ca star Ravi B.

How­ev­er, the high point of the evening was when so­ca star Yung Bred­da was in­tro­duced by Ravi B stir­ring the pa­trons in­to a fren­zy as he belt­ed out songs from his cat­a­logue.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that he was per­form­ing in cen­tral Trinidad, Yung Bred­da (Akhen­aton Lewis) briefly per­formed chut­ney hits to the de­light of ea­ger pa­trons.

The pace was at its high­est when he belt­ed out his hit Great­est Bend’ with par­ty­go­ers singing along.

He was joined on stage by Ravi B as they per­formed their sin­gle ‘Hot Up’

Clos­ing act Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller and his sup­port­ing band de­liv­ered a 30-minute packed per­for­mance that in­clud­ed Down­town Par­ty and oth­er songs from his cat­a­logue of hits.

He end­ed with his hit sin­gle Co­coa Tea, drenched in sweat but still de­liv­er­ing an en­er­getic per­for­mance to the de­light of pa­trons.