With a PHD in Carnival studies, Cyril Collier, who has been put in charge of this year's Dimanche Gras, says some people are bored by the calypso segment and he has sought to shorten the time it occupies.
Collier, a University of T&T lecturer, who said his studies focused on the drama and theatre of the Dimanche Gras, said he was "very passionate" about bringing the Dimanche Gras back to the days of the plantation owners. He was not very successful.
He said he tried to get the number of calypsonians performing in the National Calypso Monarch segment cut down to eight but was told he was lucky he got 12. Collier, who said he was put in charge of the Dimanche Gras by Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism Winston "Gypsy" Peters, said in an interview yesterday: "Do you know what Dimanche Gras means? Fat Sunday. You create a show with all the elements, mas, calypso and steelpan. "The three entities must enjoy the same amount of time," he said.
"Some people leave the Grand Stand before the calypso segment is finished because they are bored.
"You have 12 calypsonians singing two songs-That's almost three hours and 45 minutes. "There is little time for much else. People have the concept that the Dimanche Gras show is a calypso show. "It is not! It is the culmination of the best of Carnival. We have turned it into a calypso competition. That should never be!" Collier said the best Dimanche Gras was produced in the 1960s by an Englishman/Trinidadian called Arthur Bentley.
He said the theme of this year's big show was All Ah We Is One and would have a special capsule showcasing, through dance and traditional mas, the different people who lived in T&T, from the Amerindians right down to the Syrian/Lebanese community. He said there would be a unity calypso, and Shadow, in a separate act, would sing One Love, while everyone would be asked to join hands. Asked for a comment, Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation (Tuco) president Brother Resistance (Lutalo Masimba) said: "If it is that Mr Collier, or any other producer, find it have too much calypso on Sunday night, we at Tuco are willing to accommodate them by taking the competition and putting it on another night."
University of the West Indies lecturer, Dr Gordon Rohlehr, said his impression over the years was that the calypso segment of the Dimanche Gras, instead of boring the audience, created a kind of tension about who would win. "People are also interested in the political bacchanal and look forward to seeing how the calypsonians portray the politicians," he said. "This creates another kind of drama, not the drama of a stickfight or a sailorman's dance as is understood to be drama. "The real human interest is what the calypsonians are singing...The local community is interested in that." Rohlehr suggested that the show should not be changed for visitors, who should, instead, be told: "This is how we do it." Admitting that the length of time allotted to each calypsonian could be shortened, Rohlehr noted, too, that the whole of Carnival was also about that kind of excess (long shows).
