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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

When pan drove the ma. Flag woman was queen

by

20140209

She re­calls a deaf­en­ing hush as the anx­ious crowd wait­ed. The song Flag Woman dom­i­nat­ed the 1976 Car­ni­val sea­son and won Lord Kitch­en­er–Ald­wyn Roberts–an­oth­er Road March ti­tle.De­spite hav­ing had a mis­car­riage, Va­lerie Green, Kitch­en­er's part­ner and dancer, felt she could not dis­ap­point the ea­ger crowd. She did her own unique flag dance while Kitch­en­er de­liv­ered a rous­ing per­for­mance, with the Mighty Spar­row at his side. Be­tween them, says Green, they "mashed up Di­manche Gras that year."

Green, through that song and dance, is a liv­ing per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of the flag woman. To many, it seems that the flag woman is now a sym­bol of the steel­band move­ment of long ago.For pan his­to­ri­an Dr Kim John­son and Prof Gor­don Rohlehr, such com­ments ring true. In sep­a­rate in­ter­views with the Sun­day Guardian, both said they hoped the art would be re­tained, but did not see it fea­tur­ing as a promi­nent part of the mod­ern steel­band move­ment.

John­son on thede­cline of flag women

John­son not­ed as a di­rect re­sult of steel­bands no longer be­ing the ma­jor mu­sic provider on the streets on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, flag women no longer fea­tured as promi­nent­ly as they once did. Re­call­ing past pop­u­lar flag women such as Bubulups of Bar 20 (1940s) and Lil Hart, who waved for Dix­ieland, he said ini­tial­ly flag bear­ers and dancers for steel­bands were not women but men, since women who fea­tured in steel­bands were of­ten of ill re­pute.

"There was a sprin­kling (of women) in the ear­ly days," he said.The pro­lif­er­a­tion of women as flag wa­vers for steel­bands oc­curred in the 50s, 60s and 70s, when steel­bands be­came the main mu­sic provider for Car­ni­val."Large bands were steel­bands and there was a large num­ber of women. Steel­bands dom­i­nat­ed the road," John­son said. The flag bear­er of­ten cleared the path for the band to pass on the road on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.

The de­cline of flag women be­gan when steel­bands no longer dom­i­nat­ed the road.Al­though he hoped the art of flag wav­ing would not be lost, John­son did not see it be­ing a part of the mod­ern steel­band, since it was too in­te­gral­ly linked to the steel­band on the road. He hoped it could be re­vived, since many bands play on the road dur­ing bor­ough days."Pro­fes­sion­al dance might pre­serve the art of the flag woman, but it won't be in the same way like be­fore," he said.

Rohlehr: They were part of the vi­su­al and bac­cha­nal of Car­ni­val

Prof Gor­don Rohlehr said while he could not of­fer a con­crete ex­pla­na­tion for the de­cline of the flag woman, both the lack of the vi­su­al and a move away from the com­mu­nal could be seen as pos­si­ble ex­pla­na­tions.He said flag women were a part of the vi­su­al and bac­cha­nal that was Car­ni­val, but the vi­su­al was no longer an in­stru­men­tal part of Panora­ma and the steel­band, since there was greater fo­cus on the mu­sic.

Rohlehr al­so sug­gest­ed the de­cline might be at­trib­uted to the move away from steel­bands be­ing large­ly com­mu­nal. "The flag woman helped to iden­ti­fy par­tic­u­lar bands from par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ties, but that el­e­ment has di­min­ished some­what. Bands no longer have to be­long to a par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty."

Di­az: Flag bear­ers were tra­di­tion­al­ly male

How­ev­er, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, in a phone in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, said there were nev­er a lot of flag women. "I can count the num­ber of flag women on my hand," he said.

Di­az said flag bear­er­swere tra­di­tion­al­ly male and dis­pelled the no­tion that flag wav­ing had be­come a lost art. "For near­ly every band who has come for­ward, there is al­ways a flag wa­ver," he said. Asked about sug­ges­tions to keep the art of flag danc­ing and wav­ing alive, Di­az said if cor­po­rate spon­sors want­ed to as­sist in that re­gard, they were free to do so.

Learn­ing the flag woman dance

Va­lerie Green will nev­er for­get what it felt like to be on the stage danc­ing as a flag woman. But she, too, ac­cepts that the era of the flag woman has long gone and now be­longs to those "re­mem­ber-when..." mo­ments. Even Kitch's 1976 hit was meant to re­vive the art, since "it was not ful­ly func­tion­al all the time."Green, sit­ting in Rain-o-Ra­ma's pa­tio in Diego Mar­tin, look­ing at the hills, re­called that at first, she knew very lit­tle of the flag woman dance.

"I did not know any­thing about flag women, since back then we were not al­lowed to take part in Car­ni­val. When he (Kitch­en­er) came up with the idea, I was al­ready danc­ing for him. We went to Al­win Boynes' dance troupe and they taught me how to wave the flag and in­cor­po­rat­ed as­pects of the sailor and fire dance in it," she said.

Green's flag woman role took her on many tours with Kitch­en­er and she was asked to bear the flags of many steel­bands that year. She re­called that the art in­volved a lot of wrist and foot ac­tion, and move­ment in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions.

"I did the sailor band dance first and used the stick of the flag like a pok­er...in prac­tice I had to pass the flag over my head, then swing it around my waist and go on my knees and go back. A lot of peo­ple won't want to do it now be­cause it is a lot of work," she said.She, too, be­lieves the flag woman will not last un­less a con­scious de­ci­sion is made to keep the art go­ing, and at­trib­ut­es the de­cline of the flag woman to the fo­cus on the mu­sic as op­posed to the vi­su­al.

"There isn't enough room on the stage to move the flag," she said. "Peo­ple are more in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing the band than see­ing the woman wave the flag."

Mu­sic takescen­tre stage

An­oth­er promi­nent mod­ern flag woman, Odil­ia Gar­cia, agreed in a phone in­ter­view that the flag woman no longer fea­tures, since the mu­sic has tak­en prece­dence. She dis­agreed that the flag woman was not in­te­gral to the steel­band, shar­ing Kitch­en­er's view that "is on­ly a flag woman could add some pep­per in­side the band.""I think it is so im­por­tant to have a flag woman. It gives the band an ex­tra dri­ve," she said, ar­gu­ing that crowds are at­tract­ed to the band by the flag woman.

She dis­agreed as well that the art form was dy­ing.Asked what should be done to re­vive the art and the pres­ence of the flag woman in steel­bands, Gar­cia said, jok­ing­ly, "more in­ter­est­ing out­fits"–but stressed that the art of flag wav­ing and be­ing a flag woman need­ed to be taught. She al­so sug­gest­ed in­fus­ing the art with mod­ern dance tech­niques to keep it rel­e­vant and in­ter­est­ing."You have no band with­out a beau­ti­ful flag woman...The band will have no con­trol...The mu­sic will have no soul."

Kuei Tung:The art could be re­vived

For for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and pa­tron of Play­boyz Bri­an Kuei Tung, the flag woman still has a role in the mod­ern steel­band, es­pe­cial­ly with elec­tron­ic me­dia. While he agreed greater fo­cus has been placed on mu­sic in steel­bands, for tele­vi­sion au­di­ences on­ly hear­ing the mu­sic might be "vi­su­al­ly bor­ing."

Kuei Tung said a good flag woman who would keep au­di­ences en­thralled need­ed to be able to dance well, though for many bands it was hard to find a good flag woman who could al­so dance. He re­called that Pan Trin­ba­go at­tempt­ed to re­vive the art but it was un­suc­cess­ful.

Kuei Tung was not with­out hope, how­ev­er, say­ing the art could be re­vived. He sug­gest­ed that dur­ing Panora­ma or even on the street, each band could have flag women, like the cheer­lead­ing teams that of­ten ac­com­pa­ny foot­ball match­es abroad, which would keep it vi­su­al­ly in­ter­est­ing.


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