Originally from Tunapuna, George Rampersad migrated to Denmark 38 years ago. There he plays and teaches Trinbago’s national instrument, the steelpan. Over the weekend, the finals of the first ever International Rhythm in Pan, Poetry & Art competition concluded, revealing George to be the winner. The competition encourages different disciplines in the arts, with particular emphasis on bringing together steel pan music, the spoken word and visual art, while also allowing collaboration with artists in the different disciplines. George, for his presentation, performed the steel pan music and his original poem but used the carving of local artist, the late Ras Bob entitled Pan in Meh Brain.
In 2nd position, there was Richard Mendez, in 3rd, Keylon Alexis, and in 4th, Jaael Semper, all from Trinidad. In 5th position was Alex Mitchell, representing Canada and in 6th position, representing Trinidad once again was Roland Lyons. In the preliminaries and semi-finals, Britain and USA were the other countries represented by participants. The duration of the competition was six weeks. For the preliminaries and semi-finals, judging happened on Facebook on the Pan Moving Forward, Jam Yuh Set page. For the finals, what determined the winner was a peer review process and a panel of poets. The demographic was varied among the participants, as we had teenager Jaael Semper, one of two females, in contrast with quite a few elders in their 70’s and anywhere in between. Kaylon, the young male poet, was also a favourite to win as two head judges (poets) gave him the nod. However, at the end he came in third, missing second place by 0.3%. Both youngsters not only participated but were a force to be reckoned with.
The creator of the competition, Aquil Arrindell, had a main objective of helping the author, Ms Arlette Wiggins, promote a book of pan poems entitled Conversations In Pan. With help from Akinola Sennon, music director of Deltones Steel Institute, and artist, Josi Archer, they structured the competition. With help from members of the group Pan Moving Forward, they executed it. Aquil Arrindell is the president of the group Pan Moving Forward. He and his group earlier this year, have also successfully held, under pandemic constraints, a single-pan online repertoire competition called Jam Yuh Set! In De Rama. The group installed solar lights and done renovations to several pan yards and at the homes of pan men. They conducted a nationwide hamper drive for steel bands and are currently dealing with some steel bands’ land tenure issues, as well as assisting bands with steel band music arrangers.
Ms Arlette Wiggins lives in Florida but her heart is with Trinidad. Her goal is to have her book in schools locally. Having a local author provide literature on our national instrument is most appropriate, opposed to her experience growing up in Trinidad and having to study a foreign author's work which had no connection with our local experience.
Congratulations to George Rampersad and all the other participants for being a part of this historic event, Rhythm in Pan, Poetry and Art.
Aquil Arrindell
PRESIDENT
PAN MOVING FORWARD
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