Yvonne Webb

Day four of the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Arts Fes­ti­val at the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do, brought dis­ap­point­ment for the Table­land Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day. The school's choir en­tered the re­li­gious and folk cat­e­go­ry, giv­ing ex­cel­lent ren­di­tions of Kum By Yah and Wake up John­ny. How­ev­er, at the end of their per­for­mance the school had to be dis­qual­i­fied af­ter it was learnt it had per­formed those songs at the re­cent­ly-con­clud­ed Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. The rules clear­ly states that no mu­si­cal per­for­mance en­tered in the im­me­di­ate past Mu­sic Fes­ti­val or any oth­er com­pe­ti­tion with­in the past two years will be ac­cept­ed.

Ex­ec­u­tive fes­ti­val di­rec­tor, Tor­rance Mo­hammed, said while he could be flex­i­ble at times, once the rules were broached, the re­sults had to be ac­cept­ed. He com­pli­ment­ed the per­form­ers in this year's fes­ti­val on their ex­cel­lent stan­dards. He said more schools had en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion, now in its 40th year. The fes­ti­val has in­volved all of the dis­ci­plines in the vi­su­al, per­form­ing and lit­er­ary arts. Mo­hammed said he was very hap­py to see a re­turn to the Folk Cat­e­go­ry, not­ing that in the past the younger gen­er­a­tion had a ten­den­cy to move to­wards R & B and Hip Hop.

The pre­lim­i­nary round of the com­pe­ti­tion, which start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 27, will run un­til Oc­to­ber 15. Fi­nals will take place be­tween Oc­to­ber 20 to No­vem­ber 9 and the com­mand per­for­mance will take place at the Na­pari­ma Bowl on No­vem­ber 10 and 11. Yes­ter­day's fes­ti­val al­so saw the de­par­ture of the sec­ondary steel­band en­sem­bles from the stage to tents out­side the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre. Mo­hammed said that was done to fa­cil­i­tate faster move­ment of the larg­er bands and that it al­so cre­at­ed a nice at­mos­phere in the yard.