Two rel­a­tive new­com­ers are the King and Queen of Car­ni­val 2019

Joseph Lewis and Shynel Brizan beat out a host of vet­er­an mas­quer­aders at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Wednes­day night to claim their first ti­tles. Both had to over­come in­di­vid­ual chal­lenges to earn their top plac­ings. Lewis suf­fer­ing a last-minute cos­tume mal­func­tion and Brizan had to nav­i­gate a slip­pery stage in her moko jumbie in­spired por­tray­al.

“Just be­fore I crossed the stage I was in a pan­ic be­cause the cos­tume was look­ing like it was about to mal­func­tion. Know­ing what I en­dured to be at this point, I said I had to keep go­ing to the fin­ish line,” an elat­ed Lewis said in an in­ter­view mo­ments af­ter the fi­nal re­sults were an­nounced.

“Hard work pays off,” he added.

Lewis’ por­tray­al, Ghel­gath—The De­mon Lord Of Ice, de­pict­ed a su­per-sized frozen de­mon rid­ing on top of a shack­led ice drag­on. The cos­tume by vet­er­an de­sign­er Var­ma Lakhan, of An­tourage Pro­duc­tions, was a clear crowd favourite with its grandeur and in­tri­cate de­sign en­hanced by an en­er­getic per­for­mance from Lewis.

Brizan’s cos­tume. Mariel­la, Shad­ow Of Con­scious­ness, was not the most grandiose in the Queens com­pe­ti­tion but she im­pressed with her abil­i­ty to ef­fort­less­ly dance and glide across the stage in spite of the wet, slip­pery con­di­tions. She was the on­ly com­peti­tor in the Queens com­pe­ti­tion to use the tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ter in her pre­sen­ta­tion.

Brizan, from the band Moko Sõmõko, said she had to draw on her ten years of ex­pe­ri­ence in stilt walk­ing to over­come the dan­ger­ous con­di­tions caused by in­ter­mit­tent rains.

“When the rain start to fall I said this is go­ing to make it hard to per­form. When I came on stage it was a dif­fer­ent sto­ry be­cause I start to feel more com­fort­able,” Brizan said.

The 26-year-old, who com­pet­ed three times be­fore but nev­er made it to the fi­nals, could bare­ly con­tain her joy as she said she nev­er ex­pect­ed to win af­ter plac­ing sev­enth in the pre­lim­i­nary round.

In a brief in­ter­view, British de­sign­er Al­lan Vaugh­an, who de­signed Brizan’s cos­tume, ap­pealed to or­gan­is­ers of the com­pe­ti­tion, to in­vest in an in­dus­tri­al vac­u­um or blow­er to quick­ly dry the stage in fu­ture com­pe­ti­tions.

“Moko jumbies are an im­por­tant as­pect of Car­ni­val. It is very dan­ger­ous for them when the stage is slip­pery like this,” Vaugh­an, who has been de­sign­ing cos­tumes since 2012, said.

While youth topped the com­pe­ti­tion, it was a dis­ap­point­ing night for vet­er­ans. Broth­ers Cur­tis and Ted Eu­stace, who were seek­ing to claim their ninth and fourth ti­tles re­spec­tive­ly, failed to main­tain their strong show­ings from the pre­lim­i­nary round as they placed eighth and third in the fi­nal.

Rox­anne Oma­lo, who won the ti­tle last year and is the queen of Joseph’s band, nar­row­ly missed out on back to back ti­tles as she placed sec­ond to Brizan. Her phoenix-in­spired cos­tume was one of the most im­pres­sive in terms of its size, de­tailed de­sign and py­rotech­nic dis­play.

The most pop­u­lar song used by mas­quer­aders to cross the stage was the Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous’ 2019 hit Famalay , fol­lowed close­ly by Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller’s Road March con­tender Sa­van­nah Grass.

Apart from the weath­er is­sues, the com­pe­ti­tion was rel­a­tive­ly in­ci­dent-free and at­tract­ed an al­most ca­pac­i­ty au­di­ence in the Grand Stand. In ad­di­tion to the im­pres­sive cos­tume pre­sen­ta­tions, pa­trons were treat­ed to dra­mat­ic dance per­for­mances and en­ter­tain­ment from so­ca artistes Aaron Dun­can and Nailah Black­man.

Car­ni­val Kings

1. Joseph Lewis—Ghel­gath -The De­mon Lord of Ice—407

2. Tekel Syl­van—A Pea­cock Be­comes The Win­dows Of The Uni­verse—404

3. Ted Eu­stace—What Lurks In The Night—402

4. Ravi Lakhan—The Rac­noss Em­per­or—400

5. Ray­mond Mark—Suza­ku!—396

6. Jade Don­nell Sa­bala—Sting Meh—387

7. Li­onel Jages­sar Jr—Ya’wa­he: He Who Walks In The Shad­ow Of The Bear