Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

70 Philharmonic Orchestra. • 2008: Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago • 2005:The University of Trinidad & Tobago awarded Bertie Marshall a full professorial Fellowship and appointed him to head the Advanced Tuning program and teach classes in their School of Arts, Letters, Culture, and Public Affairs new Pan Lab • 2003: Trinidad’s National Carnival Commission created a new pan competition for Carnival 2003, the Bertie Marshal J’ouvert Pan Contest in which the steelbands were required to play songs that he had made popular with Highlanders • 2000: At the World Steelband Festival 2000, he received two awards, one “For Innovation and Contribution in Respect of the Steel Drum” and the other “Pan Trinbago and Signature 2000 Salute Bertie Marshall, Steelpan Innovator Extraordinaire” • 1992: Chaconia Medal Gold BERYL MCBURNIE (1914-2000) B eryl McBurnie attended Tranquillity Girls’ School, Woodbrook CM School, Government Teachers’ Training College, the Academy of Allied Arts, the Evelyn Ellis School of Drama, Columbia University in New York and the Sorbonne in Paris. Always a performer, she started reciting poetry at age eight at charity concerts and then organising performances, singing, dancing and playing the piano, in her family’s back yard at 69 Roberts Street, Woodbrook. Today that location is the home to The Little Carib Theatre which she would later establish in 1948. It has served to protect the art of folk dancing which became her life’s mission. Today groups such as the Malick Folk Performers are the living proof of the fruits of her labour of love over the decades. Molly Ahye , another famed dancer, was one of the main dancers under Beryl McBurnie. She is described as a person who possessed talent, charm and style, the grande dame of T&T dance. Her stage name while abroad was “La Belle Rosette”. The opening of The Little Carib in 1948 was one of the great occasions in Trinidad’s artistic history. Paul Robeson, the American