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Monday, February 24, 2025

Chalkdust launches Rituals of Power and Rebellion

by

20130209

Strum­ming his gui­tar, vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian/Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T pro­fes­sor Hol­lis Liv­er­pool sang snatch­es of his com­rade Slinger Fran­cis­co's clas­sic Con­go Man. The set­ting was a cane­field. It was cap­tured in black and white film dur­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion by re­tired Alaskan judge and hon­orary dis­tin­guished fel­low Ray Funk at the launch of Liv­er­pool's Rit­u­als of Pow­er and Re­bel­lion The Car­ni­val Tra­di­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go (1763 to 1962). It took place at John S Don­ald­son, UTT Port-of-Spain Cam­pus, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day.

A blurb in the UTT pam­phlet said Liv­er­pool had suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged to put in­to con­text the po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al forces which in­ad­ver­tent­ly come to­geth­er to cre­ate Car­ni­val. It al­so not­ed that what ap­peared to be sim­ply a mu­si­cal bac­cha­nal was in fact the strug­gle of the op­pressed peo­ple to main­tain their cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty in a land of for­eign dom­i­na­tion and class strug­gle.Dur­ing the au­thor's oral ab­stract, Liv­er­pool lament­ed he had to go to Michi­gan, USA, to do his PhD, ow­ing to the pauci­ty of re­search ma­te­r­i­al on Car­ni­val lo­cal­ly.

Asked about his mag­num opus, Liv­er­pool said, "Be­sides his­tor­i­cal sources I used oral sources. I de­pend­ed on ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, mas­men, writ­ers, mas­quer­aders and bo­is­men. The peo­ple whom I in­ter­viewed the ma­jor­i­ty have gone to the great be­yond."Ze­ro­ing on the themes of Rit­u­als and Re­bel­lion, Liv­er­pool added, "To a large ex­tent many of the songs, events and mas­quer­ades in Car­ni­val are rit­u­als of re­bel­lion. The kalin­da and ca­lyp­so are rit­u­als. We show our re­sis­tance at Di­manche Gras. It is a rit­u­al of re­bel­lion. Even the steel­band. The Chi­nese man who was beat­ing pan to at­tract peo­ple to his church. It was the first time we saw pan be­ing played. It is in the news­pa­pers. J'Ou­vert rep­re­sents the re­al African tra­di­tions of the Car­ni­val. It is what Dr Kim John­son (se­nior re­search fel­low) called the African im­pulse. The soucouyant, La Di­a­b­lesse and cow horns, bats and dev­ils are in J'Ou­vert."

Asked if he felt there was an im­prove­ment in the cor­pus of Car­ni­val lit­er­a­ture, Liv­er­pool said, "I don't know. But the book is go­ing to be an ad­di­tion to the archives. The book cap­tures all the doc­u­men­ta­tion and his­tor­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of Car­ni­val over time."It is in­tend­ed to im­part knowl­edge on the com­plex na­ture of Car­ni­val and the dif­fer­ent peo­ple who have con­tributed to its de­vel­op­ment. To a large ex­tent the Car­ni­val de­fines our per­son­al­i­ty and our cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty."

Trib­utes to Liv­er­pool

While prepar­ing to vie for the C2k13 ca­lyp­so monarch crown Liv­er­pool heard su­perla­tives about his schol­ar­ship. His songs were Prodi­gal Son and Vir­ginia's Alzheimer. In the back­ground, tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters like a moko jumbie and mid­night rob­ber milled around. Play­ing Mid­night Rob­ber was Damien Whiskey, a stu­dent in Liv­er­pool's MA in Car­ni­val Arts class. Liv­er­pool had pi­o­neered it.Apart from be­ing an aca­d­e­m­ic, Liv­er­pool has clinched the cov­et­ed crown eight times with gems like The Ban­dit Fac­to­ry and The Mail­man. Pro­gramme ad­min­is­tra­tor Lana Al­lard chaired the pro­ceed­ings in which each speak­er wished him a ninth vic­to­ry.

But the fo­cus was on Liv­er­pool's book. Among those pay­ing trib­ute to him were Funk; deputy chair­man board of gov­er­nors Kwais Mutema; Dr Aja­mu Ny­mo­ba; Dr Fazal Ali, provost and pres­i­dent (act­ing); se­nior re­search fel­low Dr Kim John­son; and Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Fazal Karim.John­son made the salient point that while every­one cel­e­brat­ed US pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma's vic­to­ry in 2008, Trinida­di­ans had writ­ten his­to­ry by elect­ing its first black Prime Min­is­ter, the late his­to­ri­an Dr Er­ic Williams in 1962. "It was the end of colo­nial T&T. Chalkie's book was about the el­e­ments and one cru­cial el­e­ment was the voice of the peo­ple. The voice of the peo­ple was not heard," said John­son.

Mutema de­scribed Liv­er­pool as a cul­tur­al icon and said we are for­tu­nate to have him at the helm of the Acad­e­my of Arts, Let­ters, Cul­ture and Pub­lic Af­fairs."With a PhD in his­to­ry and eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy and as the re­cip­i­ent of the pres­ti­gious Nico­las Guillen Life-Time Achieve­ment Award for Philo­soph­i­cal Lit­er­a­ture, Liv­er­pool stands well qual­i­fied both aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly as well as prac­ti­cal­ly, to in­form us all," said Mutema.

Karim not­ed Liv­er­pool's study of Car­ni­val is a "con­tin­u­a­tion of the work of aca­d­e­mics who are now de­ceased like To­ba­go's Dr JD El­der and Prof Er­rol Hill, as well as those who are still with us, like Prof Gor­don Rohlehr and Dr Jeff Hen­ry."Apart from Karim, Liv­er­pool made a spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion to his friend/chair­man of com­mit­tee US Vir­gin Is­lands (St Thomas) Ken­neth Blake.

For more in­fo, con­tact UTT at 642-8888 or e-mail thea­cad­e­my@utt.edu.tt


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