3canal has much to celebrate.

This year marks the trio's 15th anniversary as a rapso group and their 18th as a Jouvert band. Member Wendell Manwarren says in many ways this is what the eighth edition of the 3Canal show, ReEvolution Time commemorates. But the big celebration this time around is the fact that the show is returning to the Little Carib Theatre where it all started in 2004.

The show runs from today to March 5.

"It started as an idea, a very rough and tumble thing until it grew and grew," he said.

When the theatre was closed for repairs 3Canal decided to "take the big step to Queen's Hall" which offered a much bigger space leading to the offering of a different show. It has been the show's home for the last four years.

"It has done well at Queen's Hall but one of the things we've always felt at the Queen's Hall was the need to liberate the space a bit more and make people get up and dance. Queen's Hall forced it to be more of a sit-down spectacle. Once we heard that Carib was available we jumped on the idea."

He said there was also a different "vibration" to the show this year as if it wanted to be more dynamic in terms of movement and people being able to "free up and dance."

He admitted that it was a smaller, much more intimate space but that is what the group hopes to trade on this time around–the intimacy and the power of the vibration up close.

"There is a definite downside to that, yes, just from an economic point of view it is almost a crazy decision but in this instance the artistic calling triumphed over the economic side of things. We used to concentrate everything in one week in Queen's Hall. In this instance we have to spread it out in two weeks."

3Canal's Roger Roberts said the show starts earlier this year and stressed that people should buy tickets early and not wait until the last week of the event.

Explaining the name of the show, Manwarren said: "Evolution, that dynamic and impulse for change to develop and improve. That is what we are talking about, celebrating change. Change is very much the topic of now. We had a recent change in the public scenario. Change is something you have to come to terms with."

He added: "In the music business the soca djs are singing soca songs. The passing of giants like Keith Smith makes you realise that it's a changed landscape now. We also recognise that within ourselves as well."

Roberts said they keep changing up the format of the show so one did not become too comfortable, to keep it vibrant and always changing.

This time around the show's emphasis would be more on the live musical vibration. One of the subtitles of the show is 'Here Comes the MLF' (Music Liberation Front). It is a commentary on the need for quotas, a cry that 3Canal has taken up and will continue to adhere to.

Manwarren said: "We think that quotas will be symbolic of a big shift in how we regard ourselves and our culture and how we are able to reward ourselves as creative people, not just musicians but across the board so that people may see themselves and in seeing themselves know themselves and in knowing themselves are able to make proper decisions and choices for themselves."

The group has released nine new songs which will be performed at the show together with older favourites which the group feels is more pertinent to what is happening now.

Roberts said: "We've written songs that we have found over time could apply year after year. We don't feel badly about doing the song again because we feel it is still relevant and we don't feel that music dies. We may just need to present it in a different way or mix."

Manwarren said the challenge now was to make the music tell the story much more than any other show and stressed that there will not be any acting in this show.

Roberts said: "There is no 3Canal show you will come to and say it was like the last one. We have to keep changing it all the time because we can't get stale or settle. We have to keep moving like a river and not like dregs."

Manwarren revealed that a group of young animators who recently graduated from UTT will be included in this show.

Lecturer/Programme Coordinator of Animation Studies at UTT, Camille Selvon-Abrahams and lecturer Mario Lewis also of UTT were instrumental in bringing the entities together. The group, known as Lab206 has been working with 3Canal in the last few months and Manwarren is pleased with what he has seen so far.

"I am excited at the prospect of what they are going to bring to the table this time around."

For further information visit www.3canal.com or call 623-7411.