Hal­cian Pierre

Un­less you've been liv­ing un­der a rock (or have de­lib­er­ate­ly cho­sen to ig­nore the fact that the old time mas char­ac­ters are still alive), you should re­alise that long be­fore the bead­ed, span­dex clad waist­lines shook and gy­rat­ed their way across the Sa­van­nah stage and their feet were pound­ing the gov­ern­ment roads, it was the old time tra­di­tions that reigned supreme. Along with the blue dev­ils, Jab Jabs, Pier­rot Grenades, Go­ril­las, Bats and the like, the Dame Lor­raine char­ac­ter (de­scribed above), con­tin­ues to be a pop­u­lar sight dur­ing the lead up to the Great­est Show on Earth. For the past sev­en years or so, the Dame Lor­raine por­tray­al has been brought to life by June Sankar, a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion. She is al­so a tu­tor for the NCC (and quite an ac­com­plished seam­stress). She start­ed play­ing Dame Lor­raine in 2004, while her daugh­ter Na­dia Sankar, who re­cent­ly joined her as an As­sis­tant Tu­tor, made her first ap­pear­ance as a Dame Lor­raine just last year and by all re­ports, had quite an ex­pe­ri­ence. "It was great fun for me," said Na­dia, smil­ing. "I al­ways loved how my moth­er's cos­tume looked be­cause she made sure to use good qual­i­ty ma­te­ri­als – she im­ports her stuff from the US, so you know that she is all about qual­i­ty."

Prepar­ing the cos­tume from start to fin­ish usu­al­ly takes about a month, both to sew and dec­o­rate. You would think that that mak­ing the dress is the most dif­fi­cult part of the mas, but it's ac­tu­al­ly the hat, be­cause it's the part that gets no­ticed (be­fore the ex­ag­ger­at­ed bo­som and but­tocks) and must look as 'cosquelle' as it pos­si­bly can with added bows, flow­ers or glit­ter. It's al­so a por­tray­al that was done by men; there are still a few that do it to­day, but it has evolved in­to a cos­tume that's donned by both sex­es, and even the lit­tle ones are get­ting in­to it. Ac­cord­ing to Na­dia, there's no re­al age lim­it to play Dame Lor­raine. "For chil­dren the cos­tume will be sim­pler though, be­cause lit­tle chil­dren will get tired quick­er than we do," she added. "Re­mem­ber, even for a big per­son, it is a heavy cos­tume to wear and the kind of weath­er we have these days, it can get re­al­ly hot. Walk­ing around in the cos­tume, plus the wig and hat, with the ex­tra boobs and bot­tom is re­al pres­sure, but we use poly­fill stuff­ing and high den­si­ty sponge for the fill­ing. As for the ma­te­r­i­al? Noth­ing too heavy. We use poly­ester and cot­ton be­cause it dries quick­ly, you don't need to iron it and it doesn't wrin­kle as much. It's the breatha­bil­i­ty we're af­ter, plus it looks rich."

For all its rich­ness and colour though, Na­dia ad­mit­ting that though she is on­ly a year in­to it, be­lieves the old time char­ac­ter mas is dy­ing a slow death. "The younger peo­ple aren't as in­ter­est­ed," Na­dia said. "Plus, some peo­ple try to do the cos­tumes them­selves and end up mak­ing the tra­di­tion­al mas look as if it's old cloth. But, when it's done prop­er­ly, it's im­pact­ful. I'll nev­er for­get how last year it took my mom, sis­ter, cousin and my­self a whole hour to get from the Sa­van­nah to Cha­con Street, be­cause every­body who saw us we just mes­merised and want­ed to take pic­tures with us. Even when the biki­ni wear­ing peo­ple saw us (es­pe­cial­ly the for­eign­ers), they were like, "Oh my God! Can I take a pic­ture with you? Can I take a pic­ture?" But it is a dy­ing thing. Or­gan­is­ers seem to con­cen­trate on giv­ing the biki­ni mas play­ers more breaks." Cost wise, it is rel­a­tive­ly cheap­er to play an in­di­vid­ual Dame for Car­ni­val; a com­plete Dame Lor­raine cos­tume av­er­ages be­tween $1800 and $2000, with a more elab­o­rate ver­sion for $2500. Yet it sur­prised Na­dia that there were peo­ple who found the price was too high. "I mean, this is a cos­tume where you're get­ting every­thing, down to the pouch, the fan, the wig... All you have to bring is your shoes and ear­rings. You're get­ting every­thing. Per­son­al­ly, I can't say I'll spend $4000 for a cos­tume and it's fit­ting in a nuts bag or a bag you're get­ting from Won­der­ful World. Don't get me wrong. I like my "leg and thigh" mas too, but the tra­di­tion­al mas has more his­to­ry. Per­son­al­ly speak­ing, the bands aren't re­al­ly putting much thought be­hind the por­tray­als for them to stand out. It's be­com­ing too much like Brazil. We need more thought and cre­ativ­i­ty." For 2012, Na­dia is do­ing it again; this time her Dame Lor­raine is go­ing the steam­punk route. "It's sup­posed to look like an old Vic­to­ri­an styled mad sci­en­tist from the 1800s, so every­thing's re­al­ly brassy and 'junky'." (I had to ask.) Can you ever have a Dame Lor­raine with too much breasts and bot­tom? "Nah!" Na­dia laughed. "The more the bet­ter!"

If you're in­ter­est­ed in play­ing a Dame Lor­raine in 2013, con­tact June Sankar at 302-1028 or 732-8530.