ALTHOUGH THEY were not a scheduled part of the night, on Wednesday evening it was the children from the audience who stole the show. Wednesday marked the third consecutive evening of the 'Christmas in the Park' concert series at Emancipation Park, New Kingston.
The concert, hosted by Fae Ellington, was one filled with various performances, all of which seemed to engage the audience's interest and attention. However, the high point came when all the children in the audience were invited on to the stage by Godfrey Taylor.
Taylor was in the night's lead singer for the carolling segments. He proved to be quite entertaining, doing much more than getting the audience to sit and sing. As Ellington had earlier explained, the carolling segment was the audience's payment for what they had assumed was a free concert.
Taylor had earlier led the audience through all six verses of The First Noel to get the proceedings underway. Close to the end of the programme, however, he came back. This time he led the audience through Away in a Manger.
Once again he segmented the audience to help to ensure participation. Earlier, Taylor had segmented the audience into those from 'country' and 'town'. This time he separated them into adult and children. The children started out singing the first verse and did so beautifully; Taylor then took this a notch higher by asking all the children (and there were many) to join him on the stage, while the adults sang the second verse. He then took this one step further by asking the children to make their way to the stage.
From there he conducted them through the third verse. The audience was so impressed by the enthusiastic singing that they demanded an encore. They were gladly obliged and some of the children clearly delighted in being in the spotlight. Of course, a few of them were too young to do much more than stand around and look cute, but they did that very well.
Although the other performances had not elicited 'aaaaawes' from the audience they were generally good. Although the night was filled with mostly music, there was also drama and storytelling.
Storyteller Amina Blackwood-Meeks treated the audience to the tale of 'Why Patoo A Bawl Down a Gungo Walk'. She was avidly greeted by young ones, who were urged on by Ellington. Their laughter when she began her performance seemed to reward their vocal sacrifices.
She began the story with the song Christmas A Come Mi Wan' Mi Yama, which ends with the lines 'patoo a bawl down a gungo walk' and so became the offshoot for her story. The story was light and vivid enough to captivate the children, but also managed to hold the adult's attention too. It dealt with how hypocritical some persons are at Christmas, after being horrid for the rest of the year.
The Cari-folk singers also brought some music to the audience. They performed Run Come Quick, Little Donkey, Hallelujah Again, Christmas A Come Mi Wan Mi Yama, Jesus is Born and De Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy.
The Calabar Chapel Choir (of Calabar High), Bethel Steel (of Bethel Baptist Church) and Merville Forga (musical director of Almond Town's Apostolic Church) also performed.
The evening's bit of drama came from Jamaica Cultural Development Commission Festival of the Arts gold medal winner Natalie Cole, who performed Mi Wan' Dance. The men of Teen Challenge also engaged in drama and song.
