Mark Lyn­der­say

A re­view of We Kind ah Peo­ple by George Tang and Ray Funk by­Mark Lyn­der­say

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It's hard to fault George Tang and Ray Funk for their am­bi­tions here. We Kind ah Peo­ple, a new book doc­u­ment­ing ten of the bands of Stephen and Elsie Lee He­ung is a first bold ef­fort at plac­ing the vet­er­an mas­mak­er in the pan­theon of Car­ni­val's mas­ter band­lead­ers of the last cen­tu­ry.

Of the 36 bands placed on the roads of Port-of-Spain by the Lee He­ungs over 50 years be­tween 1946 and 1996, this book of­fers less than a third.

But the ten bands doc­u­ment­ed in the book of­fer a rich look at the craft of the Lee He­ungs that we haven't had be­fore.

The bands, Ter­ra Fir­ma (1974), We Kind ah Peo­ple (1975), Par­adise Lost (1976), Cos­mic Au­ra (1977), Love Is (1978), Ho­cus Pocus (1979), Co­coyea Vil­lage (1987), Colum­bus (1992), Sa­fari (1993) and Fes­ti­vals (1994) of­fer up de­signs by Carlisle Chang, Pe­ter Min­shall, Nor­ris Eu­stace and Wayne Berke­ley all en­gi­neered by the Lee He­ung's re­mark­ably con­sis­tent pro­duc­tion style.

De­spite wide­ly dif­fer­ing de­signs, there is a sur­pris­ing uni­ty among the bands, sound crafts­man­ship in­ter­pret­ing the sketch­es of the de­sign­ers in an era that pre­dat­ed cos­tume pro­to­types at band launch­es.

That process craft­ed bands from quite di­verse de­sign­ers that were styl­ish and pre­cise as well as sen­si­bly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly ex­e­cut­ed.

The book doesn't ex­plain the gaps in cov­er­age, not­ing on­ly that "George was not able to take pho­tographs every year," but al­so ac­knowl­edg­ing that they were large­ly tak­en "for his fam­i­ly and friends in the band."

For­tu­nate­ly, Tang was a crafts­man who un­der­stood the lim­its of his medi­um and worked ef­fec­tive­ly with­in them.

What isn't writ­ten in­to the book's record is the mon­u­men­tal ef­fort that has been in­vest­ed in this work or the very dif­fer­ent pho­to­graph­ic cir­cum­stances un­der which the im­ages were cap­tured.

Most of these im­ages, if not all, were shot on colour trans­paren­cy film, a medi­um that drama­tis­es the con­trasty ex­tremes of bright Caribbean sun.

In many of the im­ages, the faces and ex­pres­sions of the mas­quer­aders dis­ap­pear be­neath their cos­tumes, iden­ti­ties swal­lowed in the shad­ows cast by grand flour­ish­es of their de­sign­ers.

George Tang's cam­era records no oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers, since in the Car­ni­val he pho­tographed, far few­er pho­tog­ra­phers roamed the streets and all re­spect­ed the as­phalt stage on which mas­quer­aders per­formed.

In this era, each pho­to­graph was me­tered, every frame had to be bought and processed. A pho­tog­ra­ph­er op­er­at­ing on his own cap­tur­ing the fes­ti­val did so not on­ly with his own dol­lar, but of­ten with a bud­get.

There must have been win­ing, but Tang's record of the time shows mas­quer­aders chip­ping along, surg­ing as they hit the stage and do­ing that cu­ri­ous thing once called play­ing their mas.

The pho­tographs, like the man, are di­rect but unas­sum­ing. They con­front the spec­ta­cle be­fore them with ca­su­al ease, record­ing with clar­i­ty a col­lec­tion of cos­tumes that have large­ly dis­ap­peared from the pub­lic con­scious­ness.

From the bril­liant, of­ten ab­stract fan­cies of Carlisle Chang to Min­shall's di­aphanous Grand Guig­nol to the bur­lesque de­sign aban­don of Wayne Berke­ley, the book of­fers for con­sid­er­a­tion a Car­ni­val that will be un­de­ni­ably alien to to­day's mas­quer­aders.

In the 18 years since Stephen Lee He­ung last brought a band to the streets of Port-of-Spain, so much has changed in both the pub­lic record of the fes­ti­val and in the cos­tum­ing of Car­ni­val that it's al­most im­pos­si­ble to recog­nise any evo­lu­tion­ary link be­tween the fes­ti­val of to­day and the event that the pho­tog­ra­ph­er record­ed be­tween 1974 and 1994.

It's pos­si­ble to look at the glis­ten­ing, an­gu­lar bril­liance of Carlisle Chang's Ter­ra Fir­ma and the ro­co­co styling and shiny pip­ing of Fo­lette Eu­stace's Fes­ti­vals and not be sur­prised, but any­one who looks at this record af­ter be­ing in­doc­tri­nat­ed by the mod­ern record of Car­ni­val is go­ing to be stunned.

Twen­ty years sep­a­rate those bands, but they are clear­ly kin. In the 18 years since, every­thing seems to have changed about the cos­tumes, the mas­quer­aders and the very idea of a band when com­pared with this record of Car­ni­val.

As a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Tang's work takes a qual­i­ta­tive jump for­ward be­tween 1977 and 1978. The ear­li­er im­ages have the ca­su­al flow of snap­shots but then the doc­u­men­tar­i­an seems to de­cide that his work is a record of some­thing spe­cial and his at­ten­tive­ness to the specifics of the work in­ten­si­fy ac­cord­ing­ly.

His shoot­ing po­si­tions are more com­pelling­ly aligned with the po­si­tion of the sun and his in­ter­ac­tions with the band's mas­quer­aders are more de­lib­er­ate and con­sid­ered.

In one re­mark­able pho­to­graph, de­sign­er Stephen Shep­pard, play­ing Al­ladin in Ho­cus Pocus, ap­pears to glide along the road­way on his mag­ic car­pet, the road­side on­look­ers sub­tly blurred as he ap­pears to speed by.

In an­oth­er, a sexy show­girl in a tuxe­do top with glo­ri­ous legs in black stock­ings leads her sec­tion down Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

In this book, George Tang has cap­tured a re­mark­able era of Car­ni­val, the last era of mas­sive cos­tumes, capes, stan­dards and head­gear and yes, even co­coyea as the prin­ci­pal dec­o­ra­tion of a band.

Writer Ray Funk works hard to craft a con­text for the work, writ­ing in­for­ma­tive chap­ter open­ers for each of the band and con­tribut­ing an ex­ten­sive his­to­ry of both the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and the band­leader at the end of the book.

It's a ex­haus­tive ef­fort to of­fer a con­text for the oth­er 26 Lee He­ung Car­ni­val pro­duc­tions, but it's al­so a re­minder of just how much has been lost over the years through in­sti­tu­tion­al dis­in­ter­est in the vi­su­al his­to­ry of the fes­ti­val.

Funk writes well and en­gag­ing­ly, but the text could have done with some pro­fes­sion­al over­sight and a copy­ed­i­tor's prun­ing, the oc­ca­sion­al er­ror a dis­turb­ing hic­cup and the writer's love fest with the sheer enor­mi­ty of the Lee He­ung lega­cy called for more grit and less he­li­um.

The restora­tion work on the im­ages is al­so some­what, um, spot­ty, with sev­er­al im­ages in need of pro­fes­sion­al ton­ing ad­just­ment and crud on the orig­i­nals need­ing re­moval.

Still, there's no deny­ing that where there was noth­ing, there is now some­thing. Mr Funk and Mr Tang have sac­ri­ficed a great deal to pro­duce this doc­u­ment and as a self-pub­lished Blurb book, it is like­ly to be both cost­ly to re­pro­duce and rare in num­ber.

Se­ri­ous Car­ni­val afi­ciona­dos should bud­get for the project, be­cause it is very much a labour of love and one that's like­ly to be in de­mand among the Car­ni­val savvy.