WE KNOW THAT THE LAST CARNIVAL SEASON YOU GOT A NEW TEAM OF DANCERS FROM THE US. WAS
IT BECAUSE IT WAS HARD TO FIND DANCERS FROM THE CARIBBEAN? OR WAS IT BECAUSE OF THE
POTENTIAL THAT THEY HAD?
We didn’t set out to look for dancers. We had our dancers and in Trinidad I was the first person
to bring dancers to a soca stage like that, in a modern, fresh, hip hop almost looking dancers and
we created the HD team. After 5 -6 years they all started to go to school to learn dance and start
to drift off. It was strange, just a coincidence. I found myself in California, trying to shoot a video
before I went to Trinidad. I said ‘this is the time, let’s make the best of it and see how we can
make it look good and Caribbean.’ I suggested getting some dancers and see if they can dance
Caribbean… and they came and danced, not only they danced Caribbean they also gave it a
professional look, in heels and we looked at it and said ‘this is probably the look we want to end
up in the stadium with’ or we mix those girls with the West Indian girls. So we had Trini girls mixed
with foreign girls, they taught them what was the soca and the wining, and how we did it so it had
to bring our girls higher. Dance is a big thing in Trinidad but there is no real market for dancers
who dance for artist. I was another pioneer to that and it became popular eventually, people like
Kes have dancers, Destra is having dancers, other artists had to follow but I mean, I am always
pioneering the next step, we want to have our stage and our shows like ramming performances,
we want to teach our young people, we want them to incorporate dancers who dance for people
like Ricky Martin and around the world. I am proud that one of my dancers is going to school in
New York, just graduated with her bachelor’s degree in that and she had to take time off to do that
but this is what we encourage young people to do, maybe it wasn’t the dream before?