JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

In Depth

The changing face of Carnival

by

20120212

Car­ni­val has al­ways been colour: flashy se­quins, lav­ish fab­rics and wit used as a weapon. There's a rea­son why Trinidad Car­ni­val has spawned sev­er­al chil­dren all over the globe and is well-known as the great­est spec­ta­cle on earth. But a de­bate has been rag­ing for years over this spec­ta­cle and whether or not it has been los­ing its val­ue be­cause of new trends in cos­tum­ing.

The im­por­ta­tion of mas caus­es some tem­pers to flare and presents a lu­cra­tive busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ty for oth­ers. In fact, Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston Pe­ters an­nounced last month that the Gov­ern­ment was in dis­cus­sions with Chi­nese busi­ness­men who are in­ter­est­ed in set­ting up Car­ni­val cos­tume fac­to­ries in this coun­try. Fac­to­ries and for­eign in­vest­ment mean big­ger busi­ness as this de­vel­op­ment could mean that Car­ni­val mas-mak­ing may fi­nal­ly be­come an or­gan­ised part of our man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in­stead of an iso­lat­ed group of cot­tage in­dus­try cen­tres. But if the Gov­ern­ment takes a de­ci­sion to stim­u­late a Car­ni­val cos­tume in­dus­try with for­eign rather than lo­cal in­vest­ment, the im­pact, whether good or bad, will re­ver­ber­ate through­out the ex­ist­ing lo­cal in­dus­try.

Why im­port?

The min­is­ter's an­nounce­ment last year to in­crease the cus­toms du­ties on com­plet­ed cos­tumes im­port­ed in­to this coun­try means that the idea of Chi­nese mas fac­to­ries may be wel­comed for many band­lead­ers who would love to bring their sup­ply clos­er to the de­mand. Is­land Peo­ple Mas is one band that im­ports cer­tain el­e­ments of their cos­tumes from sup­pli­ers in Chi­na and Pak­istan. Band­leader Dane Lewis told Guardian Me­dia re­porters the Is­land Peo­ple com­mit­tee would love to pro­duce all their cos­tumes here, but it would com­pro­mise the val­ue of the work they pro­duce. "The cost dif­fer­ence is not re­al­ly the is­sue. The is­sue is work­man­ship," Lewis said.

Is­land Peo­ple's pro­duc­tion man­ag­er Tisha Niel­son who has vis­it­ed fac­to­ries in Chi­na and Pak­istan is con­vinced that it would be im­pos­si­ble for Is­land Peo­ple to pro­duce mas with­out these in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, be­cause she can­not find the quan­ti­ty of ar­ti­sans she needs to make the thou­sands of cos­tumes for the band. "There's very in­tri­cate stitch­ing for all the bead­work. When I went to Chi­na es­pe­cial­ly, they are very dili­gent and very, very fast. And I don't know any­body in Trinidad – maybe one per­son, ac­tu­al­ly – who would sit and do hun­dreds and hun­dred of cos­tumes with­in the time frame."

Even those band­lead­ers who have said they won't use Chi­nese mas fac­to­ries if they are es­tab­lished think of this de­vel­op­ment pos­i­tive­ly, once lo­cals are in­volved. "It stops us from go­ing out­side and bring­ing it in­to our coun­try, so now we can at least say that it's be­ing made here," said Bri­an Mac Far­lane, leader of the Mac Far­lane Mas band. His band has won the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion's (NCC) Band of the Year com­pe­ti­tion five times. "What I would like to see is that when the ex­per­tise comes, that we're go­ing to teach and train lo­cals, that lo­cals will ac­tu­al­ly be run­ning the fac­to­ries and cre­at­ing Trinidad mas."

But if the Chi­nese cos­tume plants do be­come a re­al­i­ty, the tra­di­tion­al space where mas is now cre­at­ed – the mas camp – will def­i­nite­ly fall un­der fire. Ham­mer­ing cop­per breast­plates, wire bend­ing, sewing and glu­ing – these skills are all very im­por­tant for even the or­di­nary mas­quer­ad­er to learn. UWI vi­su­al arts lec­tur­er Lari Richard­son fears that the demise of the camp could mean the end of that blend of cre­ativ­i­ty, "where you would get some­body who worked on the pro­duc­tion line in a fac­to­ry mixed with a seam­stress who is ac­cus­tomed to mak­ing clothes for wed­dings, mixed with some­body who came out of an art school de­sign pro­gramme, mixed with a banker. And it's that com­bi­na­tion that has al­ways fas­ci­nat­ed me." How­ev­er, the mas camp in­sti­tu­tion may al­ready be on its last legs.\

It is true that skilled Car­ni­val ar­ti­sans are now in the mi­nor­i­ty, said band­leader and mas­ter wire ben­der Steven Derek. He es­ti­mates, for ex­am­ple that there are on­ly four skilled wire ben­ders still prac­tis­ing in this coun­try. At his work­shop on Kitch­en­er Street, the tra­di­tion­al de­f­i­n­i­tion of the mas camp is alive and well; peo­ple cut­ting and stick­ing, even the King of the Band was there build­ing his cos­tume. But Derek main­tains that the lo­cal in­dus­try can be built with­out for­eign in­vestors. "It's high time we sit down and study what we do­ing and start train­ing our young," he said. "I want to see us im­port the tech­nol­o­gy, set up busi­ness and em­ploy­ment, the works. But I am not in favour of Chi­nese busi­ness­men com­ing in­to Trinidad to set up shop and man­u­fac­ture Car­ni­val cos­tumes, be­cause that would be a lot of for­eign in­vest­ment go­ing back out."

Biki­nis and beads busi­ness

It's no se­cret that mas bands usu­al­ly im­port ma­te­ri­als from Chi­na, In­dia and Pak­istan to pro­duce what is com­mon­ly known as 'biki­ni and beads' mas. Un­like tra­di­tion­al cos­tumes which re­quired the mas­quer­aders to act or play their char­ac­ter in the the­atre of the streets, the new type of mas mim­ics the cos­tume of the Las Ve­gas show­girls. It's all about stim­u­lat­ing the wear­er to lose his or her in­hi­bi­tions and par­tic­i­pate in the huge street par­ty that Car­ni­val has be­come. Tribe is one of the largest and most pop­u­lar bands in the coun­try. Band­leader Dean Akin is very clear about what his ob­jec­tives are as band­leader; and they do not nec­es­sar­i­ly in­volve main­tain­ing the art and the­atre tra­di­tions of yes­ter­day's Car­ni­val.

"Our pri­or­i­ty is not the art as­pect of it; that's im­por­tant, yes. But our pri­or­i­ty is en­sur­ing that our mas­quer­aders have a fan­tas­tic time in this street par­ty." To those who be­lieve that bands like Tribe have foist­ed this new, par­ty-ori­ent­ed cos­tume on the pop­u­la­tion, Akin coun­tered with an ex­per­i­ment the com­mit­tee con­duct­ed a few years ago. The band cre­at­ed artis­tic, elab­o­rate cos­tumes as well as a se­lec­tion of small­er, show­girl type cos­tumes and brought in loy­al mas­quer­aders to cri­tique them. The mas­quer­aders chose the Las Ve­gas cos­tumes every time.

Akin doesn't see this as a loss; he says that the unique­ness of Trinidad Car­ni­val comes from the fact that mas­quer­aders have a choice be­tween "play­ing ah mas" in tra­di­tion­al cos­tume or in the pro­tect­ed street fete ex­pe­ri­ence that he of­fers. "It makes no sense to force a dif­fer­ent type of mas on­to our mar­ket. We know our niche; that's what they want, that's what we de­liv­er," Akin said. But those who val­ue the artis­tic el­e­ments of Car­ni­val high­er than its en­tre­pre­neur­ial op­por­tu­ni­ties be­lieve the per­for­mance as­pect of play­ing mas is what tru­ly makes our Car­ni­val inim­itable. If it dis­ap­pears, with it goes true artis­tic de­sign and in­no­va­tion – some­thing that Trinidad is well-known for glob­al­ly.

"I'm an artist. I'm not a busi­ness­man," Derek said, "and I was al­ways un­der the im­pres­sion that Car­ni­val is sup­posed to ex­press the way of a peo­ple. You've lost it from the time you take the peo­ple out of it. "Biki­ni and beads is not unique to Trinidad, so it is not re­al­ly Trinidad Car­ni­val," said Fe­lix Ed­in­bor­ough, one of Trinidad's last Pier­rot Grenade play­ers. The Pier­rot Grenade is a colour­ful Car­ni­val char­ac­ter who needs to in­ter­act with crowds to ful­fil his role; he spells words pho­net­i­cal­ly usu­al­ly weav­ing an amus­ing sto­ry in the process. Ed­in­bor­ough is part of a dy­ing age of mas per­form­ers, a time when the cos­tume and per­for­mance was the most im­por­tant as­pect of Car­ni­val. "Brazil Car­ni­val is not biki­ni and beads; there are some biki­ni and beads mas­quer­aders, but they are in the very slim mi­nor­i­ty. In Trinidad, they are in the ma­jor­i­ty."

Death of an art form?

Char­ac­ters like the Pier­rot Grenade and the icon­ic Tan Tan and Saga Boy are what once at­tract­ed peo­ple to Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val. But Trin­i­ty Cross awardee and Band of the Year win­ner Pe­ter Min­shall no longer de­signs Car­ni­val cos­tumes like the gi­ant pup­pets he once mas­ter­mind­ed. He is con­vinced that the new trends in Car­ni­val have killed art. "Over the last 50 years, the coun­try has changed. The cul­ture of the coun­try is greed and pow­er from the top down. The Car­ni­val is there for cer­tain peo­ple to make mon­ey from it," Min­shall said. "The bands have got mon­u­men­tal­ly large, not to make bet­ter mas but to make bet­ter mon­ey. And all the small and beau­ti­ful and pre­cious things died on that desert of a stage."

Not every­one feels that the change in Car­ni­val is bad, though. Ken­wyn Critchlow, a vi­su­al arts lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, be­lieves a new kind of per­former de­vel­oped be­cause of a shift in the de­mo­graph­ics of the mas­quer­ade. "When I was grow­ing up, Car­ni­val was a 'man mas', be­cause there were hun­dreds of thou­sands of men on the streets. But then women be­gan par­tic­i­pat­ing in all as­pects of Car­ni­val, so that there is a new form to de­sign for. And there are young women, and we all read a lot of their pres­ence as sex­u­alised. So it's not on­ly that the women want to present them­selves that way; they know that peo­ple want to see them. The Car­ni­val must have a space for that kind of per­for­mance."

What­ev­er the rea­son for the change in cos­tum­ing, when it comes to mon­ey in mas, it seems that to­day's cli­mate af­fords the artis­tic Car­ni­val band­leader on­ly pres­tige and re­spect to live on. Mac Far­lane ad­mit­ted at a re­cent press con­fer­ence that his mas band bare­ly cross­es 1,000 mas­quer­aders in any giv­en year, and some of his raw ma­te­ri­als in years past were spe­cial­ly or­dered abroad. The band has al­ways made loss­es fi­nan­cial­ly, "and last year was our biggest loss," he said.

Mas re­vival

The clash be­tween the tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern tastes has been go­ing on for years in Car­ni­val, with­out res­o­lu­tion. But there are those from both camps who feel Car­ni­val can go for­ward in­to the fu­ture with both the cre­ative in­no­va­tion of its his­to­ry and the busi­ness sense of the fu­ture. De­sign­ers like Dar­ren Chee­wah show that a re­vival in artis­tic mas may be on the hori­zon. His new band X has ten sec­tions, each a colour­ful, mod­ern and sen­su­al play on the tra­di­tion­al sailor cos­tumes. "X was formed to bridge the gap be­tween the tra­di­tion­al mas and the sexy mas," Chee­wah said. "If your base is a biki­ni and beads, there aren't too many vari­a­tions you can get on that. You can't tell me that what dif­fer­en­ti­ates your plume from some­body else's in that your plume is six inch­es taller. That is re­al stu­pid­ness. De­mand is what you feed peo­ple. If that's what you're giv­ing them, that's what they will want."

And Tribe's leader seems to agree. "We do have a fu­ture plan to de­vel­op a band or sec­tion with­in our band of that the­atre-style mas," Ackin said. "With our abil­i­ty to mar­ket what we have, if we want­ed to sell that type of mas, we can." There are those who be­lieve the pu­ri­ty of mas' ori­gin will be res­ur­rect­ed once mas­quer­aders start to think crit­i­cal­ly about what they are do­ing when they play mas. Robert Young is the band­leader of Vul­gar Frac­tion, a small band that al­lows pa­trons to help cre­ate their own cos­tumes. Young, along with fel­low de­sign­er Lupe Leonard, pro­duce com­po­nents that mas­quer­aders dress any­way that they like, and he calls his con­cept "an­ti-com­mer­cial mas".

"We have to un­oc­cu­py our heads from be­liev­ing that things are right just be­cause they are so. There is noth­ing that is sup­posed to be so. Young asks, "Why does it have to be like that? It could be like this? I have been do­ing this band for 20 years now and there is no rea­son for it to be more than 50 peo­ple."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored