The Caribbean School of Danc­ing staged its third an­nu­al As­pir­ing Chore­o­g­ra­phers show­case on Au­gust 2 at the Lit­tle Carib The­atre.

Fifty-five years ago, then-Eng­lish Lan­guage and Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture teacher at Na­pari­ma Boys’ Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, James Lee Wah, saw more than aca­d­e­m­ic po­ten­tial in his stu­dents—many of whom were sim­ply wait­ing for the next ex­am.

Cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tions have been a beloved tra­di­tion in T&T since the late 1990s, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cen­tral Trinidad where the dish is a culi­nary sta­ple. Blend­ing East In­di­an her­itage with the na­tion’s vi­brant com­pet­i­tive spir­it, these events draw large crowds ea­ger for a day of flavour, show­man­ship, and com­mu­ni­ty ca­ma­raderie.

Jazz vo­cal­ist Vaugh­nette Big­ford was moved to tears dur­ing a heart­felt ren­di­tion of Mem­o­ry of Your Smile as she paid trib­ute to late cul­tur­al and mu­si­cal lu­mi­nar­ies Kay Al­leyne, Mori­cia Ca­gan, Pat­ti Rogers, Raf Robert­son, Clive Zan­da, Arthur Lewis, Mar­lon De Bique, and her grand­fa­ther. This emo­tion­al mo­ment was a high­light of her EMO­JA con­cert, held on Au­gust 2 at the Na­pari­ma Bowl.

From bak­ing cheese­cake dis­creet­ly to fund­ing her ed­u­ca­tion, 24-year-old Keiris Har­ris has turned qui­et de­ter­mi­na­tion in­to a recipe for suc­cess. Born in east Trinidad to Kei­th Har­ris and Joanne Der­rick-Har­ris, she en­joyed a mod­est child­hood, find­ing joy in the every­day things.

My name is Nicole Dray­ton. I’m a proud Trinida­di­an, a daugh­ter, sis­ter, friend, and now a breast can­cer sur­vivor. This is the sto­ry of the day I stepped in­to the gayelle—not with a stick in my hand but with courage in my heart—ready to fight for my life.

They call him Flash—not just be­cause he’s fast, but be­cause there’s some­thing hero­ic in the way he runs: bold, de­ter­mined, and im­pos­si­ble to ig­nore.

On the is­land of St Gyles, a small mass of land off the coast of To­ba­go, a fic­tion­al sto­ry of love meets cli­mate change in La­toy­aa Roberts-Thomas’ third book, The Tide Re­claims.

When Faith Cyrus’s par­ents named her, it was more than an ar­bi­trary name se­lec­tion; it was a de­c­la­ra­tion. Af­ter two sons, they held on­to faith that their third child would be a girl. The man­i­fes­ta­tion of that hope be­came her name and, in many ways, her sto­ry.

In a world of­ten shaped by rou­tine and rigid ex­pec­ta­tions, Col­in Matthew Reg­is, bet­ter known as “Cre­ative Matt”, chose to carve out a life de­fined by imag­i­na­tion, pur­pose, and re­silience.

چاند تنہا ہے آسمان تنہا دل ملا ہے کہاں کہاں تنہا بجھ گئی آس چھپ گیا تارا تھرتھراتا رہا دھواں تنہا زندگی کیا اسی کو کہتے ہیں جسم تنہا ہے اور جان تنہا ہم سفر کوئی گر ملے بھی کہیں دونوں چلتے رہے تنہا تنہا جلتی بجھتی سی روشنی کے پرے سمٹا سمٹا سا ایک مکاں تنہا راہ دیکھا کرے گا صدیوں تک چھوڑ جائیں گے یہ جہاں تنہا”—In­di­an ac­tress Meena Ku­mari writ­ing in Ur­du in her col­lec­tion of po­et­ry ti­tled Tan­ha Chand

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.