Michelle Loubon

Palanc­ing on the road, pos­sees of mas­quer­aders made their way across the judg­ing point on Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Car­ni­val Mon­day. Far from the mad­den­ing crowd, spec­ta­tors wit­nessed the spec­ta­cle of Tribe and a dash of Spice. All colours of the kalei­do­scope and an amal­gam of races meld­ed in the eu­pho­ria of Car­ni­va­lesque cel­e­bra­tions. In the back­ground, the state of the art Na­tion­al Acad­e­my For the Per­form­ing Arts stood silent. Cou­ples with biki­nis and beads were the tra­di­tion­al mas cel­e­brants.

Among them were ac­tor Kur­tis Gross, who was still bask­ing in Kurt Allen's vic­to­ry with "Too Bright." "I en­joyed play­ing the Prime Min­is­ter. It felt great to be part of the win­ning per­for­mance. We kept the the­atri­cal el­e­ment alive. At the last minute, we had to re­ly on sub­sti­tutes to play Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Jack Warn­er." But yes­ter­day he was fo­cused on play­ing Mid­night Rob­ber with the band Mys­tery Raiders. "I am wait­ing for stu­dents from Mor­vant/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School, where we did some work­shops." Mt Hope Con­nec­tion's Frank Nel­son played the Keep­er of the Taj Ma­hal. His face was dis­guised un­der a black and white Mid­dle East­ern head­dress.

Car­ry­ing his swiz­zle stick for the past 30 years, Arthur Stephen joined the sailors. Puff­ing on a pipe pur­chased in Ar­genti­na, ac­tor Damien Richard­son boast­ed that he was play­ing A Trib­ute To Su­perblue. Pier­rot Grenade Fe­lix Ed­in­bor­ough was spot­ted ex­e­cut­ing dain­ty moves. Ros­alind Gabriel's chil­dren, too, palanced to their hearts' de­light. The mas­quer­ade even adopt­ed a hu­mane face. Af­ter 500 mas­quer­aders had dis­played the Trea­sures of the Caribbean, co-or­di­na­tor Shel­don Weekes said: "We are dressed in white to­day. We are in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Haiti."

Off­beats in the mas

Sport­ing bow clips of every hue, Nicholas Richard­son stood out.

Bel­mont Jew­els pre­sent­ed Pi­rates and Plun­der­ers. Trudg­ing along, Bal­nar­ine Ben­ny's rel­ic of a ship was em­bla­zoned with flags on which skulls and cross­bones were etched. Skele­tons added to the macabre el­e­ment. A burst of colour sur­faced in All Stars; es­pe­cial­ly the sec­tion Free Spir­it. But­ter­flies mor­phed in­to broach­es on women's bo­soms. Sec­tion leader Syd­ney Nel­son said: "It's about the free­dom of the mind and spir­it. You are free to co-or­di­nate and mix and match and fuse the colours." Push­ing her ten-month-old son Khalil, Camille Ali chipped along. Diego Mar­tin's Gilbert Ra­goo and his band of 50 Jab Jabs cracked their whips. Sport­ing a Ne­fer­ti­ti tat­too, New York vis­i­tor Lan­vin Tay­lor summed it up nice­ly: "I am liv­ing on beer and sun­shine."