The auditions for the eighth
edition of Talent Expression, organised
by the Southern Marines Steelband Foundation,
began on Saturday and Sunday 4th and
5th October 2008 at the Southern
Marines Pan Palais, Southern Main Road,
Marabella.
The auditions continue on
Saturday and Sunday 11th and 12th
October 2008. The auditions run between 1:00 pm
to 6:00 pm. The registration fee to enter the
Talent Expression competition is $40.00.
Talent Expression
has a prize structure of over $36,000 at stake,
inclusive of prizes for preliminaries, semi
final and grand final. In addition there are
five special prizes.
The competition continues on
Saturday October 25th when the
preliminaries begin. The semi final takes place
on Saturday 8th November and the
GRAND FINAL takes place on November 22nd.
All performances take place at the Southern
Marines Pan Palais.
The competition, which has
been running since 2001, is geared toward
exposing budding performing arts talent to the
cultural scene and although the rules of the
competition are not exclusionary, the organisers
stress that the emphasis is on introducing the
upcoming generation of performance artistes to
the spotlight. This is in keeping with Southern
Marines’ strategic objective of empowering the
youth through skills development, in this case
through providing them with a forum, a stage, if
you will, where they can pursue their artistic
expression in a competitive environment.
Past winners of the Talent
Expression competition include: Sammantha
Flores and La Donna Rouse (dancers); Keisha
Codrington, Junior “Wiggy” Hinds and Richarde
Bereaux (pannists); Mark Eastman (vocalist) and
Lucy Regis (dramatic performer).
From
the news desk of Southern Marines
Steelband Foundation - Joseph Wilkinson