On Thurs­day, Mark Lo­quan and Maria Nunes, in as­so­ci­a­tion with Vanes­sa Headley-Brew­ster, pre­miered Pa­n­yard Uni­verse —an in­sight­ful and in­spir­ing 50-minute doc­u­men­tary on the trail­blaz­ing Siparia Del­tones—in a spe­cial screen­ing at Movi­eTowne at­tend­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

Pa­n­yard Uni­verse comes as the lat­est in­stal­ment of A Bet­ter To­mor­row, a col­lec­tion of films and se­ries ex­plor­ing the world of steel­pan. Pre­vi­ous projects in­clude Du­vone Stew­art: The Man Be­hind the Mu­sic, Women in Pan, Pan on the Move, a se­ries on Ka­reem Brown, and the A Bet­ter To­mor­row and My Home mu­sic videos (the lat­ter a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Eti­enne Charles), among oth­ers.

“The goal for A Bet­ter To­mor­row is to shine light on peo­ple’s jour­neys in the pan world—show­ing that the peo­ple we see are a cul­mi­na­tion of chal­lenges over­come, ex­pe­ri­ence gained, and knowl­edge be­ing trans­ferred to ben­e­fit or in­spire oth­ers,” says ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er Lo­quan.

“Lo­quan was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the land own­er­ship/tenure is­sues faced by a lot of steel­bands,” ex­plains Nunes with re­gard to what in­spired Pa­n­yard Uni­verse. “For this project, we teamed up with Vanes­sa Headley-Brew­ster to take a look at what is tak­en for grant­ed about pa­n­yards, to dis­cuss the chal­lenges many face for sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and through this to high­light all the good work that qui­et­ly hap­pens in pa­n­yards.”

For Nunes—who has col­lab­o­rat­ed with Lo­quan to pro­duce and di­rect most of the con­tent un­der the A Bet­ter To­mor­row ban­ner—the choice to be­gin with Siparia Del­tones was an easy and ob­vi­ous one.

“From the time I first met Aki­no­la Sen­non and George Cae­sar over ten years ago, I knew there was some­thing re­al­ly spe­cial about them,” she ex­plained. “The se­ries name came to me af­ter spend­ing many hours lis­ten­ing to the in­ter­views ... It was so clear from all that hap­pens at Del­tones that a pa­n­yard is a uni­verse of pos­si­bil­i­ty.”

It’s a sen­ti­ment echoed by Headley-Brew­ster, who presents the Del­tones doc­u­men­tary and serves as as­so­ciate pro­duc­er.

“I am quite fa­mil­iar with the Del­tones mod­el and the peo­ple who make it hap­pen,” Headley-Brew­ster said, “but what I was de­light­ed to dis­cov­er was their clar­i­ty of vi­sion and how they in­tend to achieve it. The lead­ers of Del­tones are all on the same page ... and at Del­tones, the heart dri­ves the mind and body to get it done, day af­ter day.”

The Del­tones doc­u­men­tary will al­so be screened at their pa­n­yard on Au­gust 25, fol­low­ing which it will pre­miere on YouTube and on lo­cal tele­vi­sion. No­tably, Pa­n­yard Uni­verse is the first open-end­ed se­ries Lo­quan and Nunes have un­der­tak­en, mix­ing long­form doc­u­men­taries, like the one on Del­tones, with short­form videos and reels that will build through the rest of Ju­ly and in­to Steel­pan Month in Au­gust (in­clu­sive of World Steel­pan Day on Au­gust 11) across the Mark Lo­quan Mu­sic YouTube, Face­book, and In­sta­gram chan­nels.

Filmed pri­mar­i­ly dur­ing the 2024 Panora­ma sea­son, the Del­tones doc­u­men­tary is a must-see not just for pan lovers, but for all those in­vest­ed in mu­sic, in com­mu­ni­ty, and in build­ing “a bet­ter to­mor­row” across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Lo­cat­ed at the his­toric Rail­way Road in Siparia, Del­tones’ icon­ic pa­n­yard is known as “The Last Stop” or “The Rail­way”, as it marks the site where the last pas­sen­ger train in Trinidad made its fi­nal stop in 1965. Since its in­cep­tion in 1962 by El­lis Knights, Del­tones has tran­scend­ed the con­ven­tion­al bounds of mu­sic-mak­ing —weav­ing to­geth­er a re­spect for his­to­ry and lega­cy with in­no­v­a­tive pro­grammes like Why­Farm; up­cy­cling of dis­card­ed ma­te­ri­als (where pal­lets be­come fur­ni­ture, and bass pans be­come piz­za ovens); an acad­e­my that teach­es mu­sic lit­er­a­cy to young and not-so-young mem­bers of the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty; and much more.

Through prob­ing and il­lu­mi­nat­ing in­ter­views with the Del­tones lead­er­ship team, the doc­u­men­tary ex­plores what a pa­n­yard is and can be: a space not just for cul­ti­vat­ing mu­si­cal tal­ent, but fos­ter­ing in­di­vid­ual growth and a re­al sense of com­mu­ni­ty. These ques­tions and more lie at the heart of both the Del­tones doc­u­men­tary, and the Pa­n­yard Uni­verse se­ries as whole. They jour­ney in­to what makes pa­n­yards so spe­cial—cel­e­brat­ing the pa­n­yard not just as a place of mu­sic-mak­ing dur­ing Panora­ma time, but as a uni­verse of pos­si­bil­i­ty, in­no­va­tion, and trans­for­ma­tion.

A Bet­ter To­mor­row was en­vis­aged as a deep look at the whole steel­pan ecosys­tem—how it all comes to­geth­er in a pa­n­yard set­ting, how all of these things are con­nect­ed to­geth­er, how they work, and what cre­ates not on­ly mu­sic, but al­so a bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty, and there­fore a bet­ter to­mor­row,” says Lo­quan.

“I was re­al­ly hap­py to see the depth of pur­pose of the Del­tones lead­er­ship. They are vi­sion­ar­ies. They’re joined by a com­mon idea, they’re ex­e­cut­ing that idea, and you can see the tan­gi­ble re­sults com­ing out of it.”

Fol­low­ing the pre­miere of the Del­tones doc­u­men­tary, Pa­n­yard Uni­verse will un­veil a se­ries of reels and YouTube shorts, fea­tur­ing key fig­ures from bands like In­vaders, Pow­er Stars, Gold­en Hands, and Su­per­novas, in­clud­ing in­ter­views with Am­rit Sama­roo, De­siree My­ers, and more. These shorts will give an in­sid­er’s look in­to the day to day life of pa­n­yard spaces, the wide range of ac­tiv­i­ties that hap­pens in them, and the chal­lenges they face.

“The depth and pow­er of all the things they said have tru­ly in­spired me,” said Nunes. “I hope au­di­ences will think dif­fer­ent­ly about pa­n­yards, and will want to take steps to get in­volved in sup­port­ing steel­bands in their com­mu­ni­ty. There is so much about steel­pan that we take for grant­ed.”

Pa­n­yard Uni­verse kicked off on Fri­day across the Mark Lo­quan Mu­sic so­cial me­dia chan­nels, with new short­form and long­form con­tent through Ju­ly, Au­gust, and be­yond. All pre­vi­ous A Bet­ter To­mor­row video projects are al­so stream­ing on Mark Lo­quan Mu­sic’s YouTube chan­nel.