‘Dancin’ Dynamites’ champs make Clarendon community proud

If happiness was a person, it would be the members of Team Overcome, the 2020-2021 winners of the Charles Chocolates Dancin' Dynamites.

The three cousins, Marcel Pitter, Renardo Peart and 13-year-old Paul McDermott, are grinning from ear-to-ear and feeling as Peart said "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". They took home the trophy and more than $1 million in cash and prizes.

The long-awaited finals, which were postponed in 2020 owing to the pandemic, finally took place last weekend at the Excelsior Community College auditorium and the contestants from Bottom Halse Hall, May Pen, Clarendon, showed their superiority over A1 Family, Strike Team, and Team Ovadose. Bottom Halse Hall erupted.

"The celebration was like election. Pot cover bang the entire time, and everybody stay up and wait until we reach back from Kingston the night. Dem lift we up and march with we through the scheme. It is a night I will never forget," a still excited Peart told THE WEEKEND STAR.

The team members said they had no doubt that they would have won the competition. Group leader Pitter said even when the competition was postponed, they practised everyday and entered competitions on Instagram.

McDermott, the youngest person in the competition, could not hide his joy, and he shared that he has big plans for his portion of the money. "I feel excited and proud, all cry me cry," the Bustamante High School student said. "My mother is proud, and the whole community of May Pen. I woulda love to treat everybody, but that not possible right now, because I want to invest my money. But before mi bank it, I am going to send my sister back to school, get some things for my mother and buy myself a school uniform and a pair of shoes." And by shoes, he means his very first pair of Clarks.

Peart, who is a tailor and designer, plans to invest the money in his business. "My business partner, Lodrick Butler, is the one who really showed me a lot about tailoring. We have three industrial machines already, and we want to invest in a T-shirt machine and some other equipment. The business is in Gutters, in Old Harbour, but I am also from Bottom Halse Hall, so I represent two communities," he explained.

Pitter, who is a painter, is particularly excited about the scholarship to the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, which is a part of the prize package. "I am going to treat myself and get my body well fit to attend Edna Manley. My aim is to get the certificate and go overseas and teach dancing and also do further studies," he said.