Pan and the outsourcing of development

The recent, poorly timed, unilateral withdrawal of multiple steelband sponsorships (better described as “investments”) by state companies drew the regret-laden attention of Pan Trinbago President, Beverly Ramsey-Moore, at the start of last Saturday’s Single Pan Finals at the Queen’s Park Savannah.

By then, Ms Ramsey-Moore must have already heard the term “dependency syndrome” applied to the condition purportedly being addressed by some newcomers to official, corporate leadership. Such a conclusion is clearly representative of appalling ignorance.

I have heard the unfortunate term more than once myself and wondered about the extent to which some key decision-makers have been aware of several longstanding, well-established facts about the relationship between steelbands and national life.

Look carefully and you will witness a situation in which both the corporate and state sectors have essentially been outsourcing key socio-cultural functions via sponsorships (investments) in steelbands.

Steelbands and their panyards – in instances where they represent legitimate, cohesive organisations (some do not) - have become important instruments through which key services, other than the clearly musical, are being delivered.

Add to this (and I repeat this for the umpteenth time) the value of pan as music, a platform for economic growth, socio-cultural development, the generation of creative capital, and the panyard as a model for social mobilisation and change.

I have employed the word “investment” at the very top of this, because anyone with even the slightest clue about the role of bands and their panyards to the development process must know that the links are inalienable.

For example, just days after the discontinuation of financial support for Skiffle Bunch Steel Orchestra (and curiously instructive notice to refrain from all branding associated with Heritage Petroleum), there was a break-in at the band’s homework centre. Yes, “homework centre.”

Junia Regrello would proudly submit for consideration the involvement of children between the ages of 5 and 15 in the band’s activities. At Supernovas, teens and young people are regularly in charge. (Unsponsored) birdsong remains a beacon in music education among the young.

Panyards, you see, are not the single-purpose facilities for performance of a single song at the Panorama competition some people still think they are.

Supernovas Panyard (watercolour 2023 by WG)

The folks at Siparia Deltones would also tell you that there is much more to not only what their organisation does, but almost all other large and medium bands. Stageside ensembles boast extensive repertoires in a wide variety of genres, keep people rewardingly busy, and generate alternative sources of band and player revenue.

Panyards are also not simply designed “to keep young people busy and out of trouble.” Clinging to this point as a standalone is almost as bad as subscribing to the “dependency syndrome” question. There is a built-in presumption in this that the cohort that gravitates toward panyards has “trouble” as default behaviour.

The reality is that the panyard has emerged as a singularly egalitarian environment where a construction worker section leader can instruct a medical professional on matters of timing and musical treatment.

As we learn from Skiffle and many others, general education and academic instruction have also become routine features of the panyard environment. People learn specific skills and are introduced to different perspectives on entrepreneurship.

Birdsong has for some years not competed in Panorama at the senior level and is paying greater attention to the junior band and the creation of a new generation of musicians. Its vacation camp experience includes academic, vocational, and music education covering a wide variety of musical instruments.

Speak with Exodus manager, Ainsworth Mohammed, and he will tell you about his “relay” theory of planning and the extent to which his band focuses on nurturing the abilities of the young to enrich prospects for the future.

I recently encountered young Niko Brewster whose university dissertation in the UK was entitled “The Emergence of the Panyard: Music, Cultural Production, and Spatial Contention.”

Brewster is clear that the “flexible space” within which the panyard operates enables near limitless options to deliver expanded services and to generate revenue. Look out for more on this in a subsequent dispatch.

It is meanwhile true, as birdsong’s Dennis Phillips suggests, that there is scope for changing the terms of reference of the steelband establishment to bring it more in line with some realities such as the fiction of over 100 registered conventional steelbands.

There is also a need for the steelband community to better tell its stories beyond involvement/success in annual competitions.

Had this been effectively done, there would be less of the prevailing nonsense that appears to be fuelling serious decision-making on investments in pan and their consequential contribution to national development.