In­nis Fran­cis

Over the years, San Fer­nan­do band­lead­ers have made a name for them­selves in Car­ni­val with the pre­sen­ta­tion of na­tive In­di­an bands. So it was no sur­prise when, around mid­night last Sat­ur­day, mod­els ma­noeu­vred au­then­tic cos­tumes from Li­onel Jages­sar and As­so­ciates at the Space night­club in La Ro­maine. Around the Te­pee was the theme cho­sen to de­pict the leg­endary mythol­o­gy of the North Amer­i­can In­di­ans, from the in­cep­tion of time to when they were dis­cov­ered by Christo­pher Colum­bus.

The band's C2K11 pre­sen­ta­tion con­sists of nine sec­tions pre­dom­i­nant­ly com­pris­ing cos­tumes with coloured feath­ers, de­signed in­to beau­ti­ful spec­trums. The cos­tumes are ex­pect­ed to at­tract much at­ten­tion dur­ing the rev­el­ry on the streets of San Fer­nan­do come Car­ni­val next year. The venue was some­what in­ad­e­quate for the launch, con­sid­er­ing the elab­o­rate and lav­ish cos­tume de­tail, in­clud­ing feath­ered boas and huge head­pieces.

The mas cou­ple–Li­onel and Rose­marie Ku­ru-Jages­sar–have 32 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in bring­ing mas to the streets of the south­ern city.

Rose­marie is the reign­ing Na­tion­al Queen of Car­ni­val, the ti­tle she copped with her por­tray­al of the Sa­cred Wa­ter Bear­er Wa­ka-Nisha, and was the first per­son in the his­to­ry of Car­ni­val to pa­rade an In­di­an mas and win the na­tion­al ti­tle. "Every­thing about our pre­sen­ta­tion, from the de­signs to wire-bend­ing to con­struc­tion is my hus­band, Li­onel. "God blessed him with the tal­ent, and even the chil­dren have the tal­ent. "They are all about keep­ing the cul­ture alive," she boast­ed. Some of the sec­tions that were on dis­play were Grass Dancers, Sub Chief, Cer­e­mo­ni­al Dancers, Keep­er of the Fire, Fox Hunter and Ea­gle Dancers.

"Our cos­tumes are colour­ful. Car­ni­val is colour and we need to keep the young peo­ple in San Fer­nan­do. "We had to keep our tra­di­tion­al theme but with a con­ven­tion­al out­look. "Peo­ple were telling us, our cos­tumes not naked enough, but how naked can you go with In­di­an cos­tumes? "We tried and came up with these cos­tumes, and I know it would be a big hit for Car­ni­val," Ku­ru-Jages­sar said.