Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Bri­an Mac­Far­lane's 2010 Car­ni­val pre­sen­ta­tion, Res­ur­rec­tion: The Mas, yes­ter­day palanced along Adam Smith Square to draw more on­look­ers than the half-naked and top­less fe­male mas­quer­aders of most oth­er large bands.

Mac­Far­lane's ex­trav­a­gant 16-sec­tion band was re­flec­tive of the Car­ni­val eu­phemism, the great­est show on earth, af­ter throngs of spec­ta­tors got off the pave­ment along the cor­ner of Ari­api­ta Av­enue and Car­los Street to crowd both sides of his pre­sen­ta­tion, which fea­tured tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters from the late 1880s. Mac­Far­lane, who has won the large Band of the Year cat­e­go­ry since 2008, was a hit among by­standers, who whipped out their pock­et-sized dig­i­tal cam­eras to cap­ture shots of the char­ac­ters in his band, such as Dame Lor­raine, a mas char­ac­ter re­flec­tive of 18th cen­tu­ry French planters, who dressed up in el­e­gant cos­tumes of the French aris­toc­ra­cy and pa­rad­ed with masks made from fine wire mesh.

Mac­Far­lane's mas char­ac­ters were main­ly clad in bronze, cop­per and gold tones with black-and-white pier­rot grenades crack­ing their whips to the awe of on­look­ers. His Car­ni­val queen pre­sen­ta­tion, Dame Gwo Bun­da, was al­so pop­u­lar among spec­ta­tors af­ter she took to the streets in moko jumbie style, cos­tumed with el­e­ments of the tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ter, the Dame Lor­raine on stilts. Dame Lor­raine, an­oth­er prod­uct of the low­er class­es of the 18th cen­tu­ry, wore fine clothes of the aris­to­crats, stuffed their bo­soms and padded their but­tocks, pro­vid­ing much com­ic re­lief. Oth­er well-re­ceived bands in­clud­ed Dave Cameron's Tri­ni Rev­ellers and Stephen Derek and As­so­ciates' grand trib­ute to mas leg­end, George Bai­ley.

Mac­Far­lane speaks

"I am not about win­ning, I am about pre­sent­ing my God-giv­en cre­ativ­i­ty, which is my art, and leave the peo­ple to judge.

"What hap­pened with the king and the queen, some peo­ple say maybe I now need to put wheels be­cause of the breeze–I would not, that's not mas–I was go­ing true with the mas," Mac­Far­lane said dur­ing a brief in­ter­view at Vic­to­ria Square, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Mac­Far­lane's Queen, Dame Gwo Bun­da and his King, Drag­on Can Dance, both fell at Sun­day's Di­manche Gras show. He said if it means re-en­ter­ing the com­pe­ti­tion next year, he would. "If I have to go back next year and I fall again–I would fall again, but I would be true to the mas. "We are down now, and we are down for 12 months, but would be back in the (Queen's Park) Sa­van­nah in mere months," Mac­Far­lane said.

The band is made up of 16 sec­tions with 48 char­ac­ters and deals with "the pure form of mas" from the 1800s, hence the use of cop­per, bronze, and gold, Mac­Far­lane said. "Every­thing is in gold, cop­per and bronze be­cause my sto­ry tells the mas has died and was buried in Buc­coo Reef," he said. "When we did the launch, the spir­its were res­ur­rect­ed on the sand bank and, to show ho­n­our and glo­ry, they washed the en­tire mas in cop­per and gold."

(Nadaleen Singh)