An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Over the years, the spec­ta­tors in down­town Port-of-Spain for J’Ou­vert have been dwin­dling. This year, those crowds seemed even small­er.

How­ev­er, Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne says the cor­po­ra­tion is now look­ing at trans­for­ma­tion mea­sures for the J’Ou­vert.

Be­fore the start of the rev­el­ry at 4 am, there was a heavy po­lice pres­ence which saw the num­ber of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers out­num­ber­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic.

Sev­er­al checks were al­so con­duct­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers at City Gate, to en­sure peo­ple com­ing in­to the city were abid­ing by the law.

J’Ou­vert start­ed with the mer­ry monarch and the tra­di­tion­al mas­quer­aders com­ing to the venue, where they per­formed to a very small crowd on the pave­ment and less than 10 peo­ple seat­ed in the Lord Kitch­en­er Stand.

Speak­ing to the me­dia yes­ter­day morn­ing, May­or Al­leyne ad­mit­ted there was room for trans­for­ma­tion.

“There is al­ways space for us to do some re­form and there is al­ways space for us to do some re­new­al,” he said.

The may­or said the cor­po­ra­tion has al­ready ini­ti­at­ed the trans­for­ma­tion with a city tourism project and a brand-new steel­pan com­pe­ti­tion on Car­ni­val Mon­day called Pana­ma­nia.

“This is to en­cour­age all steel­bands to come down­town for this new com­pe­ti­tion. It is an open com­pe­ti­tion, and we are in col­lab­o­ra­tion with all the stake­hold­ers to keep the mas and Car­ni­val alive in down­town Port-of-Spain.

The old mas com­pe­ti­tion in­tro­duced three new cat­e­gories: most com­i­cal, most hu­mor­ous, and most cre­ative.”

An­dré Vil­laru­el, who por­trayed West In­dies Force Ah Win, won the king of J’Ou­vert.

Vil­laru­el, from Mar­bel­la, was elat­ed af­ter fi­nal­ly get­ting the crown, hav­ing been com­pet­ing for over 30 years.

“I have been placed 2nd and 3rd for lots of years but I have nev­er won in thir­ty years. I have al­ways loved J’Ou­vert and af­ter it is fin­ished, that is the end of my Car­ni­val.

“It’s a group of us that work to­geth­er on cre­at­ing the char­ac­ters based on the burn­ing top­ics, with­in the coun­try,” he ex­plained.

The Queen of J’Ou­vert was Lav­erne Smith, a 24-year-old San Fer­nan­do res­i­dent with her por­tray­al I Could do De Wuk. She said she hopes her win can mo­ti­vate younger ones to cel­e­brate tra­di­tion­al old mas.

“It needs to be re­vamped, I think the may­or, and they are do­ing a very good job, but it needs to be re­vamped be­cause feath­ers and frills can on­ly go so far, this is our his­to­ry,” Smith lament­ed.

The rev­el­ry then com­menced as J’Ou­vert mas bands crossed the stage.

Vet­er­an Car­ni­val mas­mak­er Chris Humphrey, who brought back his J’Ou­vert band, ti­tled A Trib­ute to Chris Humphrey & As­so­ciates, af­ter a hia­tus, said the essence of J’Ou­vert is be­ing lost.

“J’Ou­vert is not on­ly sup­posed to be about mud, pow­der paint alone. I aim to get the younger folks in­volved in the cel­e­bra­tions. Not just the bath suit, we want them to por­tray stuff,” Humprey said.

He added that if the his­to­ry of J’Ou­vert is not pre­served, 15 years from now it will be no more.

Al­so cross­ing the judg­ing point were Panora­ma cham­pi­ons Massy All Stars and bp Rene­gades.

Sev­er­al spec­ta­tors who the Guardian Me­dia spoke to ex­pressed con­cern about the dwin­dling num­bers, but they all said they felt this was be­cause of the crime sit­u­a­tion and the fact that tra­di­tion­al mas was dy­ing out.

How­ev­er, two young spec­ta­tors said it was their first year com­ing to the cel­e­bra­tions and were im­pressed to see the ole mas por­tray­als.