Caribbean Beat — January/February 2017 (#143)

Music in motion
The steelpan is Trinidad and Tobago’s
musical gift to the world, and its apotheosis is
the National Panorama Competition. For
Nigel Campbell, Panorama’s “little rebellion”
is about much more than the music
I
am a steelpan fan. Not necessarily an overt steelpan junkie,
but I appreciate the music born here in Trinidad and Tobago,
and the sound that makes that original music. This is ours, and
once a year, we can all participate in a festival celebrating that
sound and reminding those who are sensitive to the subliminal
signs of what researcher Kim Johnson calls “the audacity of the
creole imagination.” The annual Panorama competition is more
than music: it is history and individual biography, it is sociology
and science, rhythm and motion. It is tonic and elixir for Carnival.
It is fun. I become a “people observer,” trying to create stories out
of the snippets of overheard conversations, and the sights and
sounds of this organised chaos we call Trinidad Carnival.
First things first: Carnival is not a spectator sport, but a
participatory event, or a series of participatory events: soca fetes,
pre-dawn J’Ouvert, costume masquerade, soca and calypso
competitions, and Panorama. Panorama finals, a celebration of
and a competition among the best steelbands nationally, happens
in the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain — the Big Yard, as
we refer to it locally — on the Saturday night before Carnival. It
includes bands from all over the two islands, performing eightminute
arrangements of calypso and soca tunes.
Panorama finals are the end of a series of gatherings that
awaken a spirit anybody can partake of. The best introduction
is a panyard crawl in the weeks before Carnival, to sample
the sounds and sights of that urban space where late-night
practice makes for a blending of musical dexterity and wilful
determination. As in the FIFA World Cup, there are just a few
winners in the history of Panorama, but that hasn’t stopped
bands from all corners of the islands from competing for the idea
of Panorama champion. Arguments about “who play better,” and
“who had more excitement in the pan,” and “that is not a tune for
Panorama” resonate for months after Carnival is over. Panorama
is more than music.
Panorama is music in motion. The motion of the players
rocking and grooving to the sound and rhythm of the engine
room, the percussive centre of the steelband. The motion of
the fans dancing to this music, percolating at a clip rhythm that
guarantees body and tempo should become one. Dancing is
inevitable. Dancing in time with the music, more so. Chipping
(slow, steady sliding steps as you move forward with the bands),
wining (sexy and suggestive gyrating of the hips, preferably with
a partner), and jumping up (vertical with hands in the air, and in
time with the music) are the dances of Carnival and the dances
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