It seems the new trend in Trinidad is to have Techno, House music playing while bands bring out sections. New band YUMA tried the same thing. Can I tell you- it not working. As I watched YUMA’s presentation online, it felt like I was watching a fashion show live from Paris. It was VERY uncomfortable. BAD combination. This trend better find its way out of Trinidad FAAASSSTTTT.
Dream Team launched. It seem everything went wrong with their presentation. Read and you will see what I mean.
Lata
It may have seemed like a fall into a bottomless pit for members of Carnival band Dream team, especially for band leader, Paul Singh. The band launched its Carnival 2011 production entitled The Art of Dance at the UWI Social Club, St Augustine, but it was more of a show in which comedian Learie Joseph and promoter Randy Glasgow may have wanted to invest.
Why would a band want to use hip hop and techno music to introduce a Carnival section? That’s anyone’s guess, and it is a recent practice that seems to be a recurring problem at mas band launches. The launch was supposed to feature different dances from around the world, which it did. One woman, dressed in a chutney ensemble, mounted the stage and danced to an R&B version of the song, Waka Waka.
Hip Hop music accompanied the entrance of an African section on stage, and, of course, the section was forced to make a hasty retreat. African dressed dancers were then introduced, but instead a Carnival section found its way onto the stage—an obvious lack of communication. Latin dancers came on stage as a preamble to the next Carnival section, but DJ Tech was totally out of sync with them, causing the dancers to walk off the stage one minute into their performance. DJ Tech may have been rightfully called DJ Technical Difficulties, as it took him a few sections into the presentation to get his act together.
The mayhem continued, as at least seven of the 12 sections presented resulted in masqueraders having to pick up pieces of their costumes off the stage. One frontline model was embarrassed as she bent over to pick up her head piece. And others firmly held their head piece in place to avoid suffering the same fate. Things got a little better closer to the end of the event, as the models seemed more confident and their routines were more synchronised. But although the costumes had aesthetics to their credit, the disorganisation and lack of communication definitely took away from the presentation of the four-year-old band.
The Dream Team sections for 2011
Fire Dance,
Dance Of The Nile,
La Sueno,
Soukouss,
Ritmo Del
Rio, Dansu,
Bom Bassa,
War Dance,
Samba, Odissi,
Ballet and Dance Fever.
