Yvonne Ba­boolal

Af­ter some three years of be­ing out on the streets, de­scribed by some as a hor­ri­ble ex­pe­ri­ence, band­lead­ers will see a re­turn of mas to the big stage at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for Car­ni­val 2011. Min­is­ter of Art and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day as he checked out ex­ist­ing struc­tures at the Sa­van­nah to see what im­prove­ments could be done. "This tour is just to take a look at what we're sup­posed to do to bring Car­ni­val plans to fruition for 2011. "We're putting Car­ni­val back in the Sa­van­nah," Pe­ters said.

The Pa­rade of the Bands was moved from the Sa­van­nah some three years ago by the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion for the con­struc­tion of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Cen­tre, which is still to be com­plet­ed. Mas­quer­aders were made to pass along judg­ing points on the street out­side the Sa­van­nah. Ac­com­pa­ny­ing Pe­ters was Ken­ny de Sil­va, who has re­turned as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), and oth­er board mem­bers. "This struc­ture is not what we would like," Pe­ters said, re­fer­ring to the Grand Stand. He said the plan was to move the Grand Stand fur­ther east in line with the North Stand and to es­tab­lish an ac­tive, year-round Car­ni­val "place" in the Sa­van­nah for tourism pur­pos­es.

Pe­ters said cul­ture should be one of T&T's main rev­enue earn­ers in the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion thrust. He said mas­quer­aders, band­lead­ers and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans were elat­ed about the re­turn of mas to the big stage in the Sa­van­nah. He dis­missed ques­tions about the headache of mas­quer­aders hav­ing to wait for hours to cross the stage. "Car­ni­val with­out bac­cha­nal is no Car­ni­val. How­ev­er, we're work­ing on plans to al­le­vi­ate the prob­lem," he said.

Peo­ple's band

One of the min­istry's plans is to bring out a "peo­ple's band" where the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment will pro­vide mu­sic trucks and "any­body could bring their cos­tume and come," Pe­ters dis­closed. The aim is to draw away some of the Sa­van­nah mas­quer­aders and de­crease the crowd there. "Peo­ple will go to that (the peo­ple's band)," Pe­ters said. "I hope to see the re­turn of an­tique cos­tumes and cre­ativ­i­ty. There are no re­stric­tions. If you are un­em­ployed, make a mas face and come." Pe­ters al­so dis­missed ques­tions about tak­ing away sales from mas de­sign­ers.

"That's not my con­cern," he said, frankly. "They are bring­ing mas from In­dia and Chi­na and I don't know if they are tak­ing away jobs from the peo­ple and sup­press­ing their cre­ativ­i­ty." Asked the cost of the ex­er­cise to beau­ti­fy the Car­ni­val "place" in the Sa­van­nah, the min­is­ter replied: "What­ev­er it takes for us to be here. "I'm not say­ing we're spar­ing no cost. The whole coun­try is un­der fi­nan­cial con­straints but Car­ni­val is al­so a busi­ness." De Sil­va said his pas­sion was Car­ni­val man­age­ment and said the NCC board held its first meet­ing on the site yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. A Min­istry of Works en­gi­neer­ing team and an ar­chi­tect al­so were sup­posed to vis­it the area to be­gin prepa­ra­tions, De Sil­va said. "I'm look­ing for­ward to com­ing up to every­body's ex­pec­ta­tions," he said.

Mas men re­spond

Luis Hart, of the band Harts, said he was "ec­sta­t­ic" about the re­turn of mas to the Sa­van­nah. "It's what we were beg­ging for. Mas­quer­aders missed the thrill of cross­ing the stage." He said be­ing on the street was hor­ri­ble. "They're putting Car­ni­val back where it's sup­posed to be," he said. Dean Ackin, of Tribe, said mas­quer­aders would be hap­py about the move. "My on­ly con­cern is man­ag­ing the flow of bands to the Sa­van­nah." Ackin said the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA) had been meet­ing this year with stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing band­lead­ers, to come up with a plan to ease the mas­quer­ad­er back­log. "They have some good plans which they sug­gest­ed to the NCC. I'm look­ing for­ward to this year." Dane Lewis, of Is­land Peo­ple, said mov­ing mas back to the Sa­van­nah would give mas­quer­aders the "cli­max" they had been miss­ing on the street. "The big stage pro­vides that cli­max ex­pe­ri­ence we have been miss­ing for the past three years," Lewis said.