|
Make
way for the young folkes
Pretty
Northgate Private School Fifth Former Chrisy Carrington
strikes a pose in this Kiss My Isle creation at the school’s
fund-raising Easter fashion show on Saturday. Photo: Adrian
Boodan
ONE
of the positive fun events taking place last weekend was
the fund-raising Easter fashion show staged on Saturday
by the CXC graduating class of Northgate Private School,
at Wilson Street, St Augustine. The students, needing money
for their graduation exercises, teamed up with parents to
produce a most professional and memorable event, coordinated
by parents Lynette and Lincoln Francois, with backstage
coordination spearheaded by Annette Richards, another parent.
Some of the top fashion houses and designers also played
their part by making available their creations for the young
models. Among the lines displayed were by Dexter Jennings,
Designer Look, Kiss My Isle, Carnaby Street, Millhouse,
Strictly D Best, and Cristian Boucaud.
The other event I attended on the Easter holiday weekend
that gladdened my heart because of the amount of young people
involved was the final taping of Speak!, a revolutionary
poetry television series for Gayelle The Channel, at Woodford
Cafe carpark in Newtown.
Through the persistent promptings of Brother Resistance
and Nadella Benjamin, I found myself actually back on stage
performing in front the cameras after a lengthy hiatus of
30 years. It sure felt good, although most of my co-performers
were not even born when I took that exit on the Little Carib
stage in 1977.
Among the emerging artists and established icons of poetry
and music, I will share the TV series with are Eintou Pearl
Springer, Brother Resistance, Sheldon Blackman, Errol Fabian,
Isaac Blackman, Omari Ashby, Senator Jennifer Jones Kernahan,
Davlin Thomas, Remy, Efibo Wilkinson, Dave Williams, Marcia
Henville, King David, and Ceteswayo Murai.
Speak!, which presents the rising phenomenon of performance
poetry in a series that breaks poetry out of its established
realm, will air locally April to July in Trinidad and Tobago,
utilising television as a new medium for the spoken word
expression.
Aya Vision—regarded as one of the Caribbean’s
most prolific independent production companies—has
initiated the series that will air regionally from September
2007. Led by maverick director Jason Riley, hosted by 3Canal’s
Wendell Manwarren, and with a cast of over 90 poets, the
first episode of Speak! will be aired on April 18. The show
will be beamed every Wednesday at 8 pm with repeats on Thursdays
(8.30 am) and Saturdays (7 pm), on Gayelle The Channel.
Well known Robin Foster of Fos Productions handled the ever
important sound engineering for Speak! with technical support
by Free Spirit Media, F-stop Productions and Studio 161.
The series is carded to air regionally from September to
December and producers are already planning the next two
seasons featuring poets from Jamaica, Antigua, St Lucia,
St Kitts and Barbados.
Director
Jason Riley and Producer Nadella benjamin on the set of
Speak!
Monday
morning shootout
An extremely quiet and peaceful Easter Monday morning turned
into excitement, and probably near tragedy, when a simple
shoot for the new made-in-T&T movie Branded turned into
real life drama in the heart of the nation’s capital.
The film’s main actor and actress (Rhett Giles and
Farida Farrell), participating in a high-speed car chase
along Abercromby Street literally experienced what Trini
police can do when officers of Central Police Station on
neighbouring St Vincent Street, assuming them to be the
real deal, intercepted their vehicle at gunpoint, resulting
in cast and crew being spreadeagled face down on the sun
scorched street.
The incident, though quite humorous, was also another example
of “it-could-only-happen-in-Trinidad” as two days
before, while filming along Independence Square at the Treasury
Building, not only were real life Trini police involved,
but deputy Police Commissioner Winston Cooper had a cameo
role as well. So, the question remains, how come the city’s
cops could have had no prior knowledge of what was taking
place one block from their station, and two from Police
Headquarters.
Shaken but not stirred, the actors and crew continued their
shoot out and chase up Abercromby Street, under the watchful
eyes of the police.
Branded
actor Rhett Giles retrieves actress Farida Farrell out of
a dumpster on set at the Trinidad Guardian on Easter Monday
prior to their high-speed car chase up Abercromby Street,
Port-of-Spain. Photo: Angelo Marcelle
Parang in Easter
WHEN I tell people that parang is played the entire year
in communities like Paramin, Arima and Santa Cruz, they
doubt me. Well, on Easter Monday night I had me the time
of my life by attending Baya’s Easter Parang Cook Out
& Party at Baya’s Place, which just borders Brian
Lara Grounds on Sam Boucaud Extension in Santa Cruz. Hosted
by businessman Devindra Maharaj, in addition to the great
food available, there was some sweet live parang music through
the night by Lara Brothers, with added spice to the mix
by Evergreen Tassa Group.
|
