UWI Dancing on Steel for Queen's Hall

The UWI Arts Steel and the UWI Arts Dance will present Showcase: Dancing on Steel at Queen's Hall, St Ann's on September 15.

A media release said the show is a thrilling musical production in which dance, drama and pan will intertwine to give the audience a taste of local folk heritage.

This live showcase performance will be recorded and later viewed by an international audience for the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC 2024). The showcase will also mark the end of a year of celebrations to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the UWI Arts Steel, the release said.

The music for Dancing on Steel is the brainchild of Dr Jeannine Remy, a long-standing senior lecturer of music at UWI's St Augustine campus and a prolific composer and arranger for pan.

The conductor will be Jessel Murray, renowned musician and former director of the National Steel Symphony of Trinidad and Tobago, who is the head of UWI St Augustine’s Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA).

The performance also includes choreography by Joanna Charles, who is a graduate of UWI's Practitioner’s Certificate in Drama and Dance programmes, as well as an instructor in dance at the university.

UWI's invitation to participate in the annual PASIC conference is no small feat and speaks to the excellence of the UWI Arts Steel, the release said.

"This is our second invitation to perform for PASIC, which is really just incredible. This year, many groups applied and were denied; we were accepted and invited to perform, so this is something that we are really proud of," Remy said in the release.

The concert will feature a suite of six original pan compositions by Remy, all of which draw influence from the West African derivative of local folk dancing tradition. The music and dance encapsulate the essence of six of TT's most iconic Afro-French Creole dances: the belair, Tobago jig, kalinda (stick fighting), limbo, bongo and calypso.

"All of the music and dances speak to us as Trinbagonians and explore all the different influences that we've had and who we have become," Charles said in the release.

Dancing on Steel was commissioned by Prof Michael Mizma and the San Jacinto Central Steel Band at San Jacinto College in Texas and has already been performed both in Texas and here at the Naparima Bowl.

Aside from serving as a virtual showcase concert for PASIC, the performance bookends the anniversary of the UWI Arts Steel, one of the DCFA’s musical ensembles formed by undergraduate students and co-directed by Murray and the great music teacher and arranger, the late Nervin Saunders.

Khion De Las, instructor in music, is the present co-director of the ensemble.

“This performance of Dancing on Steel: A Live Recording for PASIC 2024 promises to be an unforgettable experience for audiences of all ages and continues the celebration of the steelpan as our national instrument,” Remy said.

Tickets are available at Queen’s Hall. Specially-priced tickets for UWI alumni/students are available from the DCFA at UWI-Republic Bank Department of Creative and Festival Arts building at Cheesman Avenue, St Augustine, and from members of the participating ensembles.

For more info: 662-2002 ext. 85440/85454, 272-DCFA (3232) or e-mail dcfa@sta.uwi.edu or uwi.arts.steel@gmail.com.