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A crescent moon hung in the cloudless sky over Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), as steel pan orchestras pushed through a throng of thousands of supporters who had gathered to greet them outside the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain.
They were on their way to the final round of the Caribbean country’s national steel band competition: the culmination of months of rehearsal.
The steel pan finals, which kick off four days of carnival revelry in T&T, is a fierce competition, with the bar rising yearly. On stage on Saturday, rival orchestras used drama, poetry and dance to introduce their musical arrangements before exploding into an electrifying blend of rhythms that were greeted by the crowd with giddy, unadulterated joy.
“Pan is a therapeutic instrument that keeps you calm. It’s happy music,” said Beverley Ramsey-Moore, the president of Pan Trinbago – the self-described “world governing body for the steelpan”. “It represents the tears, blood and sweat of our ancestors, and it is important as a community building tool,” she added.
“Pan is us, and we are pan!” said Ainsworth Mohammed, leader of the Exodus orchestra, before their prize-winning set at Saturday’s finals.
“This is the mecca of carnival, and this is what we live for as pan men or as musicians. This is the ultimate prize for us, just being here at the finals,” said the Exodus tenor pan man Jamaal Lewis.
Stuart Young, who will become prime minister on March 16 when Keith Rowley resigns, said pan has a unique power. “What you’re witnessing here is the culmination of the greatness of our national instrument, the steel band. Tonight is what it all comes down to. After months and months of preparation and weeks of competition … What you’re going to listen to is going to blow your mind. Because Pan is life, Pan is love, and Pan is what Trinidad and Tobago are part of, what we are about.”
But even as he spoke, there was a strong police presence amid the jubilant crowd, a sobering reminder that the country is currently in a state of emergency that has been in place since December after weeks of bloody gang warfare.
Concerns about violence, however, have not deterred the thousands of steel pan fans, who packed out the Savannah and spilled into the “drag” where the pan artists made their entrance.
“We are so excited,” said Kathleen Betaudier, who was standing behind barriers at the foot of the stage. “It’s our culture, it’s our thing, it’s our musical adventure,” she added.
Paige De Leon, the founder of the Global Carnival Alliance, which she created to develop and promote carnival across the world, said the huge turnout to its annual parties – despite the state of emergency – was a show of resilience. “People have said: ‘We are not going to allow crime and criminals to hold us hostage. We are not going to be stopped. We are not going to sit at home. We are going to party because we have a right to express ourselves and to live.
“It is the power of the art that started as a resistance to colonial oppression. It is the power of our decision to express ourselves regardless of how you choose to oppress us. Then, it was slavery; now it’s people who break the law and try to create a state of fear.”
The annual celebration of the art forms and traditions of carnival, De Leon believes, is sacrosanct. And the steel pan – which last month replaced Italian coloniser Christopher Columbus’s ships on the T&T coat of arms – is central to that celebration.
Akua Leith, a pan expert and managing director of pan-fabricators Musical Instruments of Trinidad and Tobago Company, said the art form doesn’t just represent national culture and identity. It is also a vivid display of the Trinbagonian ingenuity that transformed bamboo and oil drums discarded by the US military into musical instruments – helping reimagine Caribbean music.
The architects of pan, he said, “were not scientists or strategists … They weren’t guys of high reputation. In fact, in those days, pan was seen as undesirable and taboo.
“These guys were fighting against social norms and all these different things. So it came out of struggle, it came out of rivalry, it came out of all those hardships,” he added.
Randall Mitchell, T&T’s minister of tourism, culture and arts, said that carnival was more than a celebration: “Carnival is always special. It’s a rite of passage for us. It’s not just a festival. Our carnival is rooted in our ancestral heritage and comes out of the bondage of slavery. It’s a chance for us to exhale, to revel, to just throw off all our problems. We love it, and we look forward to it every year. I think it is really good for our mental health.”
Mitchell said the state of emergency had focused on criminal groups so as not to disrupt everyday life for the majority of the population. “There were no curfews in place and no real restrictions for the law-abiding people,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I think that the state of emergency … actually made the carnival a lot better. People feel a lot safer coming out.”
