Culturama thrills with thorough entertainment

Last Friday, patrons at the Culturama Concert held at the Jamaica National Building Society Chief Office car park were treated to a few hours of thorough entertainment.

The occasion served as both a concert and as a presentation ceremony for the winners of a display competition relating to Jamaica 50 celebrations, that took place between various branches of the organisation.

The greater part of the night, however, belonged to the performers. Most of them did well in keeping the audience entertained.

When The Gleaner arrived at the venue, the Tivoli Dance Troupe was entering the stage and, clad in black, green and gold attire, the females got straight into their popular dance piece.

They blended well with the national colours in which the stage was decorated.

The event was hosted by Christopher 'Johnny' Daley and, as usual, he kept the audience entertained with bursts of wittiness throughout its entirety.

'Visa Saga'

Kingston and St Andrew Festival Queen second runner-up Jameila Simpson delivered a dramatic presentation of her 'Visa Saga' selection that also won her Best Performance in the Festival Queen competition. Simpson had also received prizes for being the Most Congenial and the Most Culturally Aware contestant in the same competition.

In the entertaining piece, in which she took on the persona of a Jamaican female going 'to foreign', she had the audience bursting with laughter throughout with her raucous-but-humorous demeanour.

Singing Dis Long Time Gal, and reciting 'Colonisation in Reverse', a Jamaica National Building Society employee was also well received.

Rising Stars 2009 contestant Angele Smith started off his performance with his rendition of Michael Jackson's Dirty Diana. After that, he shifted the attention to the happenings in London saying that he was celebrating on the night for the winning of a silver medal in the female 4x100m earlier in the day.

He did Wild World followed by an original, Know Yourself, then I Feel Good. With the latter, he said, "Mi waan see everybody a dance!" in an effort to get the audience moving. A few of them did.

Another Tivoli Dance Troupe piece of contemporary dance followed and a Stars Academy dramatic presentation about "Miss Highty Tighty" did well in stirring up laughter in the crowd.

The last two performers were the best.

This year's festival song winner Abbygaye 'Abby' Dallas' Rub A Dub rhythm medley of Etana's I Am Not Afraid, Richie Stephens' The Plane Land, and Ginjah's Never Lost My Way, opened her stint on stage before she closed with her winning festival song entry Real Born Jamaican.

Four-time festival song winner Roy Rayon was welcomed to several miniature Jamaican flags waving. He tested the audience's knowledge of Jamaican popular music with Wayne Smith's Under Mi Sleng Teng before he delved into songs such as Tony Rebel's Sweet Jamaica and Cherry Oh Baby.

"Help mi sing it now!" he said.

And they did.

They sang the "Ohhh, Ohhhhh ..." vocals of Cherry Oh Baby.

Next, he did Barrington Levy's Too Experienced before going on to deliver more of his later recordings, among them Rise Up Mighty People.