Screenshot from the film ‘Panyard Universe’ courtesy Maria Nunes, used with permission.

In a United Nations resolution adopted just last year, August 11 is officially World Steelpan Day. While citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, where the pan was born, have long regarded it as the country's national instrument, the country's parliament was a tad late in catching up, officially passing the Bill to do so on July 4, 2024. With presidential assent, the Bill becomes an Act, giving it legal legislative status.

On July 11, a few days after the Bill passed, I attended the launch of “Panyard Universe,” a 50-minute documentary featuring the south-based steel orchestra Siparia Deltones that was screened at MovieTowne in Port of Spain. Executive produced by Mark Loquan, it is the latest instalment of “A Better Tomorrow,” a series
that shines light on people’s journeys in the pan world — how they are “a culmination of challenges overcome, experience gained, and knowledge being transferred to benefit or inspire others.”

Produced and directed by Maria Nunes, the film explored the core question of “What is a panyard, really?” She says that because Loquan was “particularly concerned about the land ownership/tenure issues faced by a lot of steelbands,” they wanted to examine “what is taken for granted about panyards, to discuss the challenges many face for sustainability, [and] highlight all the good work that quietly happens in
panyards.”

Much more than just a practice space for steelbands, panyards are hubs of their communities, cultivating musical talent, supporting personal growth and development, and encouraging all manner of innovation. The spirit of the Deltones’ panyard, captured so honestly in the film, encapsulates the potential panyards have to transform our society, as writer and cultural worker Attillah Springer so eloquently put it in this short by Walt Lovelace a year prior.

For Nunes, making the film was a “journey into what makes panyards so special —celebrating the panyard not just as a place of music-making during Panorama time, but as a universe of possibility and transformation.”

Alpha Sennon, who handles Deltones’ marketing and communications efforts, sees the panyard as a peaceful place where people can come to relieve their stress — but it is also a space of “conversation, mentorship, academic learning, entrepreneurial development [and] freedom.” This makes complete sense given the instrument's history, which was rooted in struggle and rebellion. For panyards to have emerged, survived and thrived as places of freedom after centuries of colonial powers trying to stifle Black expression is wondrous.

Deltones’ Executive Director Akinola Sennon takes the Siparia Deltones through a drill. Image by Maria Nunes, used with permission.

All panyards possess that sense of wonder, but Deltones’ Executive Director Akinola Sennon took it a step further, saying there are tangible benefits to come out of panyards that make the case for ensuring their sustainability — poverty alleviation, crime reduction, education, equality, self-awareness. “An evolved self,” he explains, “will have a yearning for an evolved environment […] and the inhabitants of that said environment — so peace will foster.”

Because the panyard model is so easily replicated and scaleable, he argues, it has the power to create the kind of country citizens long to see. Trinidad and Tobago has been grappling with increased rates of violent crime.

This is not lip service. From seemingly little things (like swapping out plastic chairs for charming seating made of wooden pallets that were designed and constructed by band members) to much bigger undertakings (like the WHY Farm — an acronym that means We Help Youth), the Siparia Deltones are putting plans into practice. According to George Caesar, the band's conductor, “If your idea ain't big enough, don't bring it to the panyard.”

Railway Pizza is another shining example of this ethos. Siparia used to be a major railway terminal in South Trinidad; the Deltones say they have made their home at the site where Trinidad's last passenger train made its final stop on August 30, 1965 (though historian Bridget Brereton noted that the Trinidad Government Railway was formally decommissioned in 1968).

Taking a cue from this rich history, however, Deltones began taking old steelpans and, rather than using them for basic and unimaginative purposes like rubbish bins, repurposed them into ovens for pizza-making — a perfect way to use the produce from WHY Farm and turn a further profit.

The panyard fosters an atmosphere of self-sufficiency and innovation. Another example is the on-site playground with equipment constructed out of pallet boards. It may seem basic enough, but for Caesar, it represents a shift in how panyards are perceived by the wider society. “I know a period in time they used to call the band Weedtones,” he said, “and to come out of that stigma and to see it today as a place that parents bring their children [and] seeing their development.”

Young people learning to play the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago in the Siparia Deltones panyard. Screenshot from the film ‘Panyard Universe’ courtesy Maria Nunes, used with permission.

For Latisha Alfred, a young woman who plays for Deltones, the panyard is a family where you can learn music and many other skills. While most community centres across the country are not well patronised, she observes, you will always see people in a panyard. Alpha Sennon underscores her point by saying that he has never seen any young person who has chosen to come to their panyard ever get in trouble with the police — even in cases where they had a prior history of lawbreaking. The secret, he believes, is much more than the music — it is the discipline you learn at a panyard.

As for Panorama, the most illustrious annual steelpan competition in the world, Akinola Sennon says, “It could never be just this.” He posits that if the energy and dedication Panorama inspires could be transmitted into all areas of society, Trinidad and Tobago would be a first-world country within three years.

He's right when he says that the steelband movement has not received the recognition or respect it deserves for the levels of productivity and the management skills it takes to harness a band to compete at Panorama; for the consistent excellence these bands display year after year: “It's actually acknowledging the structural power of this, the governance power of this [and] then allow for economic creativity to foster out of these ideas. […] It have something more innovative than this?”

Judging from the way in which the instrument — and the panyard spaces that foster it — has made its mark around the world, the answer is no. Nunes hopes that the film will help audiences “think differently about panyards, [and] take steps to get involved in supporting steelbands in their community.”

Now that Trinidad and Tobago has finally adopted the steelpan as its official instrument, perhaps it will also move in tangible ways to ensure both its sustainability and its ability to modulate the society into something just as beautiful.