Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Car­ni­val rhythms fused with sport­ing en­er­gy as the TRIBE group of bands pre­sent­ed their 2027 cos­tume se­lec­tion in World Cup style at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, bring­ing the foot­ball fren­zy to pa­trons in an ac­tion-packed spec­ta­cle of colour and ex­cite­ment.

TRIBE’s Launch Cup in­vit­ed fans to wear their favourite team’s foot­ball jer­seys, as the bands un­der their um­brel­la - The Lost Tribe, Bliss, Harts and TRIBE - took to the stage, giv­ing spec­ta­tors a glimpse of next year’s road wear.

While the first pre­sen­ta­tions ap­peared on stage just be­fore 10 pm, live rhythm sec­tions out­side the venue near the en­trance and in­side the North Stand greet­ed pa­trons who trick­led in­to the Sa­van­nah’s main stag­ing area at around 7 pm, keep­ing the rhythm alive and set­ting the tone for what was to come lat­er that evening.

The ex­cite­ment was pal­pa­ble as throngs of pa­trons crowd­ed around the front of the stage as the lights dimmed and low, omi­nous mu­sic filled the venue be­fore sud­den­ly cut­ting to dancers in foot­ball jer­seys in­tro­duc­ing the first mas­quer­aders with up­tem­po so­ca mu­sic.

The tone of the evening took a sud­den turn when the rau­cous sounds were quick­ly re­placed by slow tra­di­tion­al Ara­bic mu­sic and ul­u­lat­ing as mas­quer­aders for The Lost Tribe’s pre­sen­ta­tion, ‘Sto­ries of the Sand’, walked through the crowds to­wards the stage.

The cos­tumes, heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by tra­di­tion­al Ara­bi­an no­madic wear suit­ed for deserts, were re­mod­elled with Car­ni­val in mind, prompt­ing cheers from the crowd as bel­ly dancers led the mod­els on­to the stage while Ara­bi­an chant­i­ng and mu­sic were remixed with so­ca, dance­hall and reg­gae­ton to the crowd’s de­light.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia back­stage, The Lost Tribe’s band­leader Valmi­ki Ma­haraj said the con­cept sought to recre­ate the im­agery and ex­ot­ic feel­ing of Ara­bi­an cul­ture for T&T’s Car­ni­val, while re­spect­ing the au­then­tic ori­gins of the style they sought to em­u­late.

“More than pre­sent­ing the theme, it was so im­por­tant to us that the crowd got in­volved. When you think about Arab cul­ture...when you think about how they dance the dabke, when they ul­u­late, every­thing is so com­mu­ni­ty-based...the way they re­spect and ho­n­our their cul­ture.

“We were able to work with Rose­marie (Abed) and the SLWA (Syr­i­an Lebanese Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion) in a way that al­lowed our de­sign team to ap­pre­ci­ate the cul­ture, ap­pre­ci­ate the process and ap­pre­ci­ate from a very in­ti­mate stand­point.

“So the sen­si­tiv­i­ties that go in­to trans­lat­ing cul­tur­al sto­ries was some­thing our de­sign team and pre­sen­ta­tion team was able to have.”

Ma­haraj said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly heart­ened by the crowd’s in­volve­ment in the un­veil­ing as he sought to pro­vide an im­mer­sive ex­pe­ri­ence where pa­trons felt like they were part of the per­for­mance, min­gling along­side the mas­quer­aders.

Re­fer­ring to child­hood fairy tales like Al­addin and Sin­bad, he said Arab cul­ture and the mys­ti­cism of the Mid­dle East have been a recog­nis­able part of the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness for some time, and he was hap­py to reimag­ine the style through a Trinida­di­an lens.

The Lost Tribe has won four con­sec­u­tive Band of the Year ti­tles, in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, re­spec­tive­ly.

Com­ment­ing on these suc­cess­es, Ma­haraj said putting for­ward a qual­i­ty prod­uct and ser­vice was the first pri­or­i­ty.

“I think the mas­quer­ad­er and mas­quer­ad­er hap­pi­ness is al­ways at the fore­front of my mind, but at the end of the day, we are an award-win­ning band, and we al­ways put an award-win­ning ef­fort out.”

“I was raised in the bel­ly of hu­mil­i­ty, so I ain’t say­ing any­thing about Band of the Year.

“It’s a lot of pres­sure, but when you put faith in your best ef­fort and best foot for­ward, the com­pe­ti­tion be­comes sec­ondary to it, and I say that with the great­est re­spect to the com­pe­ti­tion.”

Al­so prompt­ing a sig­nif­i­cant crowd re­sponse was Bliss’ pre­sen­ta­tion of Hori­zons, which utilised colour­ful im­agery of ce­les­tial bod­ies, in­clud­ing clouds, stars and plan­ets.

The band’s de­sign­er, Chan­dra Ma­haraj, said the con­cept be­hind the theme sought to make use of the bright­ness and won­der of these nat­ur­al mar­vels by trans­lat­ing them in­to com­fort­able, prac­ti­cal cos­tumes.

“The fo­cus was our ver­sions of a sky, a hori­zon, whether stars, moons, clouds, we had the op­tion to dig deep. We weren’t too re­strict­ed, so we made full use of it.”

Com­ment­ing on the ear­ly Car­ni­val sea­son next year, which will be held on Feb­ru­ary 8 and 9, Ma­haraj said the band was ready.

“Last year was an ear­ly year; next year is go­ing to be an ear­ly year... what we call a short sea­son as well as the fol­low­ing year, so be­cause of last year, we have a lit­tle bit more time for next year.

“It hap­pens every few years...it’s not un­com­mon, so we just have to prep our­selves for it.”

Al­so part of the cos­mic theme of cos­tumes was Harts’ pre­sen­ta­tion, Cos­mic Chaos, which fea­tured cos­tumes stylised to re­sem­ble ex­trater­res­tri­al and out­er space odd­i­ties with­in styl­ish, flir­ty de­signs.

Con­clud­ing the pre­sen­ta­tions was the se­lec­tion for TRIBE with Elysia, which was in­spired by el­e­ments of Greek mythol­o­gy, with sec­tions ti­tled Pyra, Zo­rya, Nyx, Nymph and Neo­ma, each pay­ing trib­ute to dif­fer­ent fig­ures in folk­lore.

One mod­el, Da­nia Duntin, who fea­tured a cos­tume from the sec­tion Am­brosia, said not on­ly were the cos­tumes vi­su­al­ly ap­peal­ing, but they were com­fort­able for mas­quer­aders as well.

“This is one of the most com­fort­able cos­tumes I’ve worn. It’s pret­ty easy to move around in, you’re not go­ing to lose any­thing...I would say just do what fits you best.”

In keep­ing with the theme of the evening, foot­ball-themed props, at­trac­tions and games were present through­out the venue, as the dé­cor sought to recre­ate the style of a World Cup set­ting.