AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Leg­ends, myths and the un­mis­tak­able en­er­gy of Car­ni­val took cen­tre stage as Spir­it Mas un­veiled its pre­sen­ta­tion for Car­ni­val 2027.

Many peo­ple at­tend­ed the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed event last Fri­day at the NA­PA Court­yard in Port-of-Spain.

De­spite the rainy weath­er, the show went on, as not even the down­pour could damp­en the ear­ly Car­ni­val spir­it. Rev­ellers-in-wait­ing were ea­ger to get their first glimpse of the cos­tumes they could soon call their own.

With mu­sic pump­ing, danc­ing lights and the par­ty well un­der­way, the stage was set for Spir­it Mas to pull back the cur­tain on the theme, ‘LORE’. The pre­sen­ta­tion draws on the spir­it, sto­ries and soul of T&T’s rich cul­ture, with every cos­tume be­ing named and fash­ioned af­ter var­i­ous folk­lore char­ac­ters.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Spir­it Mas founder and CEO Adri­an Scoon said the theme pro­vid­ed mas de­sign­ers with a wealth of in­spi­ra­tion to bring folk­lore leg­ends to life with each daz­zling cos­tume.

“We have a very pow­er­ful theme, which is ‘Lore’ which is based on our folk­lore. So much deep cul­ture and so many dif­fer­ent tones in­volved in that. It gave us a blank can­vas to paint on. So our cos­tumes are very pret­ty, but very much on theme as well,” Scoon said.

For Car­ni­val 2027, Spir­it Mas is of­fer­ing nine cos­tume de­signs: Pa­pa Bois, Ma­ma D’Leau, Heart­man, Anan­si, Soucoy­ant, La­ga­hoo, La Di­a­b­lesse, Douen and Gan Gan Sarah.

But Scoon says the pre­sen­ta­tion en­tails more than putting ex­quis­ite and colour­ful cos­tumes on the road. It is al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to place our cul­ture at the fore­front of the Great­est Show on Earth, while shar­ing our sto­ries be­yond the coun­try’s shores.

“Spir­it is about putting the cul­ture for­ward. Trinidad has so much to of­fer and so many dif­fer­ent ar­eas that we can ex­plore. We’re such a di­verse coun­try, that we feel like in Spir­it, it’s part of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to share that knowl­edge with the world,” he said.

The band launch was al­so part of a se­ries of days filled with ac­tiv­i­ties de­signed to give pa­trons more than the tra­di­tion­al cos­tume re­veal, with there be­ing the ‘Art­Mas Mu­se­um’, an im­mer­sive sen­so­ry mu­se­um where the cos­tumes were sit­u­at­ed amongst back­drops and spe­cial sound ef­fects re­flect­ing their folk­lore tales, al­low­ing pa­trons to gain a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of the cre­ative think­ing be­hind the cos­tumes and the theme.

But for many, the launch is where the hype was. Af­ter hours of an­tic­i­pa­tion, as the clock struck mid­night, all eyes were di­rect­ed to the door­ways, ready for the first sight­ing of a Car­ni­val cos­tume mod­elled in all its mag­nif­i­cence. With a spe­cial­ly cu­rat­ed playlist by the dee­jay, the fe­male mod­els strut­ted out on­to the cat­walk, close­ly en­veloped by the crowds, pro­vid­ing an in­ti­mate and per­son­al view­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of what the cos­tumes will look like be­fore they hit the road.

With this be­ing its fourth year of pre­sen­ta­tion, Scoon said that Spir­it Mas is con­tin­u­ing to learn and evolve.

Spir­it Mas is ex­pect­ing be­tween 3,500 and 4,000 mas­quer­aders for Car­ni­val 2027, plac­ing it some­where be­tween the tra­di­tion­al clas­si­fi­ca­tions of medi­um and large bands.

“I think we are get­ting bet­ter in terms of the staff un­der­stand­ing ex­act­ly what mas is. We’re al­so un­der­stand­ing our con­sumers bet­ter, our cus­tomers, our mas­quer­aders bet­ter. Un­der­stand­ing what their tastes and pref­er­ences are.”

By the end of the night, pa­trons were cer­tain­ly en­thralled with the idea of bring­ing folk­lore on­to the road and in­to fete for Car­ni­val 2027.