ANGELA PIDDUCK - Newsday
SUCCESS Laventille Secondary School hosted a welcome reception last Sunday for El Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba (The Cuban National Folkloric Dance Ensemble) in its beautiful school auditorium. And what a welcome it was! The large gathering of guests headed by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Guillermo Vasquez Moreno, Ambassador for Cuba, was warmly welcomed by school principal Hamida Baksh, the driving force in these educational and cultural exchanges which began with the school’s steel orchestra’s visit to Cuba in August 2015.
The programme started with Success Stars playing perfect renditions of the national anthems of Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago; and continued with many speeches complete with interpreters; interspersed with parang from Los Angeles de San Miguel, the Prem Jyoti Dance Academy’s East Indian Dance, North West Laventille Cultural Performers’ Tribute to the Ancestors (Orisha dance), limbo, Winston “Gypsy” Peters in calypso and a parade of Carnival characters.
But the highlight of the programme came when during the Pan Sounds’ rousing performance of Hunger, the Cubans spontaneously left their seats in the audience, ran on stage and in the twinkling of an eye choreographed a dance to the pulsating sounds of the steelband.
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