On the evening of Sunday, December 9 I had the time of my life! The Elements: The Rhythmic Dance of our People concert at Our Lady of Guadalupe RC Church, Paramin brought guests to their feet at the closing piece of a truly remarkable presentation.
The performers were not only skilled musically (drums of various kinds, piano, cuatro, box bass and maracas), they were well organised and properly rehearsed to deliver a spectacular show!
The humour was tasteful with songs such as ‘Santa Baby’ and ‘The Ganges and the Nile’—family oriented but as clean as a Christmas show should be, with some patois in the mix and even minstrels.
I don’t know how many persons were in the audience; my estimate is around 250–300 people, but there ought to have been more. In my long-ago youth, I was not given the opportunity to participate in such a high quality and dynamic church concert, and here we have the youths of Paramin delivering a state-of-the-art, top-notch concert, which was nothing short from an actual theatre production. This has reassured me that our youths are in good hands and the Kingdom of God is being built through youth creativity, talent and voices.
Guests were welcomed and greeted by uniformed ushers at the entrance on a red carpet with flame torches, setting the tone for the evening. A beautifully decorated stage, costumes and lighting added to the ambience but my highlight was the proper management which is usually tricky: the transitioning and timing of each act was perfect. A show on this level meant that the organising committee worked hard to execute every activity of the show as it flowed from song to song.
To the parish priest of Paramin and Maraval, thank you for pushing your youths and providing them the opportunity to showcase their talents. Thank you, young people of Paramin and all the performers. To the creators and production team, I applaud you for taking this initiative and executing an international-type concert. I look forward to another concert soon (hopefully for Easter).—Anastasia Gafoor, Assumption parish