Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

From Laven­tille to Lon­don, Port-of-Spain to Paris, Michelle Hug­gins-Watts has car­ried the rhythm of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the world through the steel­pan.

Stand­ing be­hind the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, she’s a phe­nom­e­nal play­er. Stand­ing in front of the steel­pan, with her back to the crowd, she’s a win­ning arranger. As the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brates World Steel­pan Day to­mor­row, WE mag­a­zine sat down with Hug­gins-Watts to talk re­flect on a steel­pan ca­reer that dates back to the late 1980s.

As a woman, her ca­reer in the pan in­dus­try has been one of many firsts but has al­so been one of much strife. Ul­ti­mate­ly, it has been one of tremen­dous suc­cess­es.

How­ev­er, her will to play the pan was first stunt­ed by her moth­er. When Hug­gins-Watts en­tered St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege, she told her moth­er of her in­ter­est in play­ing the steel­pan. Her moth­er was not ready to send her daugh­ter in­to a pa­n­yard. But the de­sire stayed with Hug­gins-Watts. It wasn’t un­til Form Four that she was able to start learn­ing the in­stru­ment at her sec­ondary school.

She formed a life­long bond with the steel­pan—an in­stru­ment that would take her around the world, whose lega­cy she would pro­tect, and whose fu­ture she would help shape, in­spir­ing gen­er­a­tions of women along the way.

“I did not dream of be­com­ing an arranger or a steel­band cap­tain or any­thing like that. But I guess you do things out of pas­sion and love, and peo­ple ob­serve your work, and this is how I was asked to be­come cap­tain of Phase II Pan Groove by Boogsie,” she re­called in an in­ter­view with us last week.

Her life in ar­rang­ing steel­pan mu­sic would start right where her roots were. While she laboured in the Schools Steel­bands Mu­sic Fes­ti­val with love, Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra was watch­ing her work. They would ap­proach her to lead their band in 2002 for the mu­sic fes­ti­val, then sub­se­quent­ly stay on for Panora­ma in 2003–her first op­por­tu­ni­ty to arrange for a con­ven­tion­al adult band.

Her life in the steel­pan would take her from play­ing to lead­ing, but it was a long time com­ing. In 1998, as a teacher at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, she took Wood­brook and Trin­i­ty Col­lege com­bined, WoodTrin, to the Ju­nior Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, and they won the ti­tle.

How­ev­er, be­ing a fe­male arranger hasn’t al­ways been an easy road for Hug­gins-Watts. While she feels she hasn’t re­ceived push­back from males in the in­dus­try, she has of­ten strug­gled with pres­sur­ing her­self.

She said, “I think the chal­lenges were with­in me. It’s be­cause I re­al­ly felt that com­ing in­to this are­na, which is a male-dom­i­nat­ed are­na, I need­ed to re­al­ly come good or not come at all. So, I al­ways chal­lenged my­self to pro­duce mu­sic that would not just sat­is­fy my mu­si­cal ap­pre­ci­a­tion but al­so the ears of the lis­ten­ers. When I arrange, I would try my best to en­sure that every sec­tion com­petes with the oth­er.”

Her work in ar­rang­ing steel­pan mu­sic would take her to where no oth­er woman has gone be­fore. In 2011, Hug­gins-Watts led Val­ley Harps to Panora­ma vic­to­ry in the medi­um band cat­e­go­ry. She be­came the first woman arranger to win a Panora­ma ti­tle.

Now, she is not on­ly re­spect­ed in T&T but al­so in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. “The jour­ney has been one where lots of doors have been opened for me in terms of trav­el, con­duct­ing steel­band work­shops in all re­gions of France, ad­ju­di­cat­ing here, re­gion­al­ly in the US. It’s just on­go­ing. I see my­self now, too, as be­ing able to give back to the art form.”

Hug­gins-Watts has sat on sev­er­al com­mit­tees, such as the Na­tion­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee formed through the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, where they were tasked to de­vel­op a gov­er­nance frame­work for the steel­band art form.

While some lo­cal cit­i­zens may think the na­tion­al in­stru­ment re­mains the most pop­u­lar in T&T, Hug­gins-Watts sees it dif­fer­ent­ly. She said, “It is a world in­stru­ment. It is ap­pre­ci­at­ed and adopt­ed, and I will dare say in some coun­tries, much more ap­pre­ci­at­ed than we do here in T&T be­cause they recog­nise the worth and val­ue of this and the art form it­self. It’s not just about play­ing the pan; it’s about chang­ing lives.”

She tru­ly be­lieves the steel­pan has all the in­gre­di­ents nec­es­sary to trans­form lives. Hug­gins-Watts added, “Com­ing to the pa­n­yard, we don’t re­alise that af­ter com­ing, work­ing to­geth­er, learn­ing to­geth­er, that in it­self is an ed­u­ca­tion. The pa­n­yard is ex­act­ly an ex­ten­sion of the class­room. What takes place in the class­room? Teach­ing and learn­ing.

“How do you get chil­dren to learn? You may have chil­dren of dif­fer­ent back­grounds. Some may come with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties that have not, may or may not have been recog­nised and di­ag­nosed, and so on, but you have to find ways, dif­fer­ent learn­ing strate­gies, to get them to learn. It’s the same thing in the pa­n­yard. Some may come with a nat­ur­al abil­i­ty to ab­sorb mu­sic and per­form well. Some may be, as we say, hard-head­ed, but you have to find ways to teach them.”

In 2003, when the Unit­ed Na­tions de­clared Au­gust 11 as World Steel­pan Day, it filled her heart with joy. She said, “It’s a pore-rais­ing sen­ti­ment, be­cause when you look at the his­to­ry of the art form, it was al­ways a strug­gle, and this is an in­stru­ment that was deemed to be as­so­ci­at­ed, I should say, with the out­casts of so­ci­ety, nev­er to be played in a church.”

   Much like the steel­pan it­self, Hug­gins-Watts has blazed a trail for women in the art form. Her jour­ney con­tin­ues to in­spire young girls in schools and pa­n­yards across the coun­try, show­ing them that they too can fol­low in her foot­steps.