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Friday, September 21, 2007
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
T&T Carnival History
Two most interesting accounts of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival History,that I have seen thus far was done in 2004 by the National Library and Information System Authority in T&T. “Mama Dis is Mas”: A Historical Overview of the Trinidad Carnival, 1783 – 1900. The other article of interest was done by TriniSoca.com The Carnival Story - 162 Years Of Mas By Terry Joseph.
To understand the process of were we are today, these articles examine the complex historical, social, cultural and political contexts which gave birth to our Carnival Culture.
From Christopher Columbus's landing in Trinidad in 1498 to the emancipation of the slaves in 1838.The article gives a vivid picture of the Cannes Bruleés (French for Burnt Canes), comprising songs, dances and stick fights.
"Cannes Bruleés had its genesis during slavery. Whenever a fire broke out in the cane fields, the slaves on the surrounding properties were rounded up and marched to the spot, to the accompaniment of horns and shells. The gangs were followed by the drivers cracking their whips and urging them, with cries and blows, to harvest the cane before it was burnt.
THE JAMETTE CARNIVAL a term which was used by the French and English to describe the Carnival celebrations of the African population during the period 1860 to 1896. The term comes from the French “diametre” meaning beneath the diameter of respectability, or the underworld . The view of the whites was that the Carnival activities were immoral, obscene and violent. For free slaves in Trinidad, Carnival was more than just music , masquerade and dance. It was about their very existence a release from the struggle that was their daily lives."
Masqueraders used current topics in their creativity of costumes, the plight of the ordinary people, the aristocrats and to poke fun at ruling governments. Newly arrived Africans also depicted ancestral spirits such as Moko Jumbie.
"Moko Jumbie - This is an authentic African masquerade mounted on sticks. It was believed that the height of the stilts was associated with the ability to foresee evil faster than ordinary men. A jumbie among Africans is a spirit. Moko is a “diviner” in the Congo language. The Moko Jumbie was felt to be a protector of the village. This masquerade is still in existence today and is seen at occasions other than carnival."
The liberated slaves created traditional carnival characters such as MINSTRELS,DAME LORRAINE, JAB JAB, FANCY INDIANS, JAB MOLASSIE, PIERROT GRENADE, BATS, MIDNIGHT ROBBER, BURROKEET, BOOKMAN, SAILOR MAS, BABY DOLL, NEGUE JADIN, and COW BAND.
The ruling classes restricted their participation to house parties and club dances and fancy balls. It is from these balls that the Carnival Queen Show and the Dimanche Gras productions emerged.
"Fancy dress balls were held at the Prince’s building adjacent to the Queen’s Park Savannah. In 1922, the first major Carnival stage spectacle was presented by the Les Amantes de Jesus Society – a voluntary organization under the leadership of M. Joseph Scheult. The Society gave an annual charity ball on Carnival Monday night. This started in the 1920s and continued until 1948. After a fire destroyed the City Council building, the Council offices were moved to the Princes' Building. The offices were then moved to the Queen's Park Oval."
With a few omissions here is the Carnival Story article.
"Although a major part of the Trinidad Carnival mystique lies in its unique ability to bring people of diverse backgrounds together in harmonious circumstances, the festival was not born to such noble pursuits.
During the first 50 years of the 20th century, the Carnival was affected by global and domestic conflict. There were World Wars and local gang riots, but creativity flourished in peacetime.
Pan was invented. Early development of the instrument far exceeded the speed of its acceptance across the board. Calypso went international and people actually made their own mas costumes or at least participated in the exercise.
In the second half of that same century, Carnival first rose to a level of extraordinary splendour, then hit a sharp curve. The burst of creativity that came in its glory days radiated from both social groups and was identifiable in every component of the festival. Historical and tribal mas presented educational and aesthetically pleasing images. Pan development enjoyed both diversification and a sense of urgency and calypso chalked up a reprise of its golden age.
However, by the turn of the 1990s, much of the applause earned earlier in the period had subsided, as the festival had undergone a categorical shift of focus, one that clearly pleases the majority, but continues to be a source of bother to more than a few.
Like the rest of the society, Trinidad Carnival had in fact been touched by a number of social and economic realities. The Black Power movement that began at the turn of the 1970s and the boom economy, that followed far too soon to keep reason intact, changed spending habits at all levels.
This national windfall, which helped to fund the rise of disc jockeys and music bands of extraordinary amplification, dramatically changed every aspect of the festival too. Its benefits did not however trickle down to the level of pan research and development, stalling the progress that had been made with the instrument up to that time.
In addition, there was women's liberation, the creation of soca, a runaway cost of living, computer-aided design ad marketing of mas bands, production-line manufacture of costumes, the popularity of synthetic fabrics, emergence of the entrepreneurial producers and performers, the effect of radio and television and the fitness craze.
Applied concurrently, these deceptively unrelated components had the capacity to irretrievably alter the form and content of the Carnival. Slowly at first, but completely by the end of the 20th century, the festival changed from a cutting-edge creative crucible, to a market-driven, manufactured commodity.
Mas dumped traditional themes and elaborate portrayals, opting for minimal clothing and fantasy presentations. Once an integral part of pre-Carnival fetes and the main parade, pan music was sequentially marginalized. Traditional calypso first gave way to soca, and then lost further ground when the Road March became the most lucrative form of a new genre called "festival music".
The most dramatic shift however took place in the very gender of the masquerade, with women moving from a laughably small minority of the costumed revelers back in the 1950s, to what the National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA) now estimates at fully 85 percent of the annual parade population.
From the lower-class jamettes of the mid-20th century, the streets largely surrendered in the latter-day to the aerobics-oriented lovelies of the middle-class. Consider now that more than 55,000 masqueraders crossed the Queen's Park Savannah stage during the 1999 Carnival."
If you look at these two articles and read what I have already presented on the blog, you begin to see where we've come from, where we have been, where we are going and what a creative and promising future we have ahead. I believe that things move in a circle and we are half way through the circle of our carnival cultural development. I love my culture good or bad because it gives me a clear picture of who I am, where I have been, where I have come from and what a promising future I have.
To understand the process of were we are today, these articles examine the complex historical, social, cultural and political contexts which gave birth to our Carnival Culture.
From Christopher Columbus's landing in Trinidad in 1498 to the emancipation of the slaves in 1838.The article gives a vivid picture of the Cannes Bruleés (French for Burnt Canes), comprising songs, dances and stick fights.
"Cannes Bruleés had its genesis during slavery. Whenever a fire broke out in the cane fields, the slaves on the surrounding properties were rounded up and marched to the spot, to the accompaniment of horns and shells. The gangs were followed by the drivers cracking their whips and urging them, with cries and blows, to harvest the cane before it was burnt.
THE JAMETTE CARNIVAL a term which was used by the French and English to describe the Carnival celebrations of the African population during the period 1860 to 1896. The term comes from the French “diametre” meaning beneath the diameter of respectability, or the underworld . The view of the whites was that the Carnival activities were immoral, obscene and violent. For free slaves in Trinidad, Carnival was more than just music , masquerade and dance. It was about their very existence a release from the struggle that was their daily lives."
Masqueraders used current topics in their creativity of costumes, the plight of the ordinary people, the aristocrats and to poke fun at ruling governments. Newly arrived Africans also depicted ancestral spirits such as Moko Jumbie.
"Moko Jumbie - This is an authentic African masquerade mounted on sticks. It was believed that the height of the stilts was associated with the ability to foresee evil faster than ordinary men. A jumbie among Africans is a spirit. Moko is a “diviner” in the Congo language. The Moko Jumbie was felt to be a protector of the village. This masquerade is still in existence today and is seen at occasions other than carnival."
The liberated slaves created traditional carnival characters such as MINSTRELS,DAME LORRAINE, JAB JAB, FANCY INDIANS, JAB MOLASSIE, PIERROT GRENADE, BATS, MIDNIGHT ROBBER, BURROKEET, BOOKMAN, SAILOR MAS, BABY DOLL, NEGUE JADIN, and COW BAND.
The ruling classes restricted their participation to house parties and club dances and fancy balls. It is from these balls that the Carnival Queen Show and the Dimanche Gras productions emerged.
"Fancy dress balls were held at the Prince’s building adjacent to the Queen’s Park Savannah. In 1922, the first major Carnival stage spectacle was presented by the Les Amantes de Jesus Society – a voluntary organization under the leadership of M. Joseph Scheult. The Society gave an annual charity ball on Carnival Monday night. This started in the 1920s and continued until 1948. After a fire destroyed the City Council building, the Council offices were moved to the Princes' Building. The offices were then moved to the Queen's Park Oval."
With a few omissions here is the Carnival Story article.
"Although a major part of the Trinidad Carnival mystique lies in its unique ability to bring people of diverse backgrounds together in harmonious circumstances, the festival was not born to such noble pursuits.
During the first 50 years of the 20th century, the Carnival was affected by global and domestic conflict. There were World Wars and local gang riots, but creativity flourished in peacetime.
Pan was invented. Early development of the instrument far exceeded the speed of its acceptance across the board. Calypso went international and people actually made their own mas costumes or at least participated in the exercise.
In the second half of that same century, Carnival first rose to a level of extraordinary splendour, then hit a sharp curve. The burst of creativity that came in its glory days radiated from both social groups and was identifiable in every component of the festival. Historical and tribal mas presented educational and aesthetically pleasing images. Pan development enjoyed both diversification and a sense of urgency and calypso chalked up a reprise of its golden age.
However, by the turn of the 1990s, much of the applause earned earlier in the period had subsided, as the festival had undergone a categorical shift of focus, one that clearly pleases the majority, but continues to be a source of bother to more than a few.
Like the rest of the society, Trinidad Carnival had in fact been touched by a number of social and economic realities. The Black Power movement that began at the turn of the 1970s and the boom economy, that followed far too soon to keep reason intact, changed spending habits at all levels.
This national windfall, which helped to fund the rise of disc jockeys and music bands of extraordinary amplification, dramatically changed every aspect of the festival too. Its benefits did not however trickle down to the level of pan research and development, stalling the progress that had been made with the instrument up to that time.
In addition, there was women's liberation, the creation of soca, a runaway cost of living, computer-aided design ad marketing of mas bands, production-line manufacture of costumes, the popularity of synthetic fabrics, emergence of the entrepreneurial producers and performers, the effect of radio and television and the fitness craze.
Applied concurrently, these deceptively unrelated components had the capacity to irretrievably alter the form and content of the Carnival. Slowly at first, but completely by the end of the 20th century, the festival changed from a cutting-edge creative crucible, to a market-driven, manufactured commodity.
Mas dumped traditional themes and elaborate portrayals, opting for minimal clothing and fantasy presentations. Once an integral part of pre-Carnival fetes and the main parade, pan music was sequentially marginalized. Traditional calypso first gave way to soca, and then lost further ground when the Road March became the most lucrative form of a new genre called "festival music".
The most dramatic shift however took place in the very gender of the masquerade, with women moving from a laughably small minority of the costumed revelers back in the 1950s, to what the National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA) now estimates at fully 85 percent of the annual parade population.
From the lower-class jamettes of the mid-20th century, the streets largely surrendered in the latter-day to the aerobics-oriented lovelies of the middle-class. Consider now that more than 55,000 masqueraders crossed the Queen's Park Savannah stage during the 1999 Carnival."
If you look at these two articles and read what I have already presented on the blog, you begin to see where we've come from, where we have been, where we are going and what a creative and promising future we have ahead. I believe that things move in a circle and we are half way through the circle of our carnival cultural development. I love my culture good or bad because it gives me a clear picture of who I am, where I have been, where I have come from and what a promising future I have.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Mas on D Road Again for 2008
This article taken from yesterdays express says it all. According to the Minister of Culture,Joan Yuille-Williams, construction of the National Carnival and Entertainment Centre would not be completed in time for Carnival 2008.
She said it would be built by 2009, which means masqueraders could find themselves parading on the road in front of the Queen's Park Savannah next year, as they did for Carnival this year.
$450m Carnival Centre comes to a halt
-Juhel Browne
Wednesday, April 11th 2007
Construction of the proposed $450 million National Carnival and Entertainment Centre has come to a halt because the design is being reviewed.
Prime Minister Patrick Manning made the announcement yesterday almost a month and a half after the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (Udecott) said the Request for Proposals for the project were to have been issued "in the coming weeks". Read more...
She said it would be built by 2009, which means masqueraders could find themselves parading on the road in front of the Queen's Park Savannah next year, as they did for Carnival this year.
$450m Carnival Centre comes to a halt
-Juhel Browne
Wednesday, April 11th 2007
Construction of the proposed $450 million National Carnival and Entertainment Centre has come to a halt because the design is being reviewed.
Prime Minister Patrick Manning made the announcement yesterday almost a month and a half after the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (Udecott) said the Request for Proposals for the project were to have been issued "in the coming weeks". Read more...
Monday, April 9, 2007
Peter Minshall on T&T Carnival, Music, Mas Bands, and the Savannah
In these two articles we explore carnival through the eyes of one of our most celebrated carnival mas designers, Peter Minshall. In these articles we find the history of our music, carnival culture, and our love for two things that were given to us freely, the Savannah and Carnival. The first interview with Peter Minshall was featured in the Sunday express in December 2006, the interview is conducted by B.C. Pires. The second was done by Nalini Maharaj D'Abadie "T&T Carnival right on track" Thursday, February 22nd 2007.
The following is the two articles taken from the Express:
..........................................................................................................................................................................
Artist and masman, Peter Minshall, on Savannah, the heart of the Carnival.
Q: How should we approach Carnival and the Savannah?
A: What can we do that all mankind will say, "How gracious, how generous, how thoughtful of Trinidad and Tobago to give the rest of us their incredible riches!" First, we have to understand in our own heads what our incredible riches are. Start with as simple and, on the face of it, as ordinary a thing as a savannah. Which other city in the world has, at its heart, not a park all pretty with roses, but flat land with, at the other end, the Northern Range rising magically?
To have a savannah in the middle of your city is a richness to be treasured, to keep in touch with the divine. Forty years after Independence, in the Savannah, we have benches that look as though they were constructed for a penitentiary, so that criminals could not mash them up!How should they be designed?
The Savannah is so totally taken for granted. There used to be a low railing all the way 'round it with two bars, you could rest one foot on. What can we do with our Savannah in the New World? Look at the lovely shape (shows hand-drawn outline stressed to reveal the shape of a heart)! Dare we make a brilliant stainless steel railing with some sort of brass or alloy couplings?
So it's different, exciting and tells any passerby immediately, "This place is special to us. We decided to give it a frame." Beautifully designed, strong but light. Re-check the entire paved perimeter of the Savannah. Come on! We can do better than pitch or concrete! What sort of yellow brick road or silvery slate grey thing goes there?
That's just so you look at the Savannah and understand it is a treasured place, that there is no park as beautiful in the Americas. I don't think that is beyond us, to reach within ourselves, for ourselves and the world. We could replant some of the trees taken by storms to recreate a grassland, people with trees, surrounded by a fine, burnished (heart-shaped) railing. We need to respect that beautiful word: "Savannah"!Peter MinshallCarnival is connected to the Savannah?
I believe my father, as head of the tourist board, was one of the first people who took the Carnival to the Savannah. We inherited a colonial grandstand for viewing horse racing - which it's kind of reasonable to have if you're going to have anything in a savannah. The parade of the bands (went there) when bands were 300-to 400-strong. The Carnival went gaily through the city without blockage at the Savannah. However, even when I was an adolescent, late Fifties, early Sixties, I remember the so-called "bourgeois" bandleaders quarreling like mad that these steelbands with their 1,000-strong throngs of sailors were "getting in the way" and not adding anything to the Carnival. The "lower-class" steelbands were edged out. Flag Wavers of Sienna. (Edmond) Hart! One of the most brilliant bands, ever, about 300 people, a bunch of flags going clockwise, a bunch going anti-clockwise, another bunch going clockwise inside, rustle and bustle and kinetic splendour. The audience went wild. The bands were small enough to move quickly, the stage (small enough) so a little imp, a little robber could come along in-between-but already the stage was being built to accommodate bands, and not the little people of the Carnival. The stage built for it encourages the growth of the band, a money-making enterprise (which) gets bigger and bigger. This vast, arid environment is not the place for the small, the delicate, the beautiful-the individual. The bands (become) commercial juggernauts. The bar truck, the toilet truck, the this truck, the that truck, the wet-me-down truck. The costume, if you want to call it that, has been reduced to a minimal formula. The calypsonian, who is supposed to see the whites of the eyes of his audience, on this vast desert, is forced to bring on ridiculous side shows, so much so that some calypsonians get more marks for the side show than the song. Sometimes when I hear, "Great is the PNM and it will prevail!" I think, "My God, it has!" Yet I have to retract that thought because, if it wasn't the PNM, it would be somebody else. A little island people, coming into its own but not thinking its own thoughts-Las Vegas has upgraded its image to the quality of Cirque du Soleil. We, who once had the quality of Cirque du Soleil in the palms of our hands, are downgrading ours to the lowest level of Las Vegas. Let nobody fool themselves to think we're going the way of Brazil. Rio Carnival is fine. Yes, there are a few naked women but they're doing the samba. They are not dancing wine-the-place-down soca.Should there be a Carnival Centre in the Savannah?
The grandstand is being broken down but they're going to do a spectacular, contemporary, GRANDER grandstand in its place. They're going to build a mausoleum for the thing now that it's pretty well dead! A glass coffin, so we could look in at its last breath. There is a bottleneck at the Savannah. Doesn't that say something to you?
Get the hell out of it! It is no longer serving your culture. The Carnival is sick and dying, you haven't even looked at why, you just say, "We want a jewel in the crown!" To say what? What a fine government we are? And you're fooling the people because you're killing the very thing the people brought into being, their Carnival? And the tragic thing is, the people believe you!What about Panorama?
The theatre that is Panorama is muscular and visceral and tribal and community-based. Its naiveté is a large part of its beauty: all those silver fringes, that shivering tinsel, all those people pushing those carts on wheels-this happens nowhere else in the world! And you are going to take this vibrant, muscular, visceral thing-and (in pained voice) put it in a glass box? Is Panorama going to be a museum piece in Stuttgart or London? Is it that black people so want to be white they have forgotten who they are? That their potency and vitality is going to be so condomised it is left lifeless! I understand you think it may be a bow to the Carnival to give it a spectacular glass building but it's the worst thing you can do. It's like taking the thing that is dead and letting it lie in State now. Expand Panorama and impress the world with your knowledge of yourself: around the Savannah! Create a ring of steel so powerful it will reverberate throughout the Caribbean-I need a concert hall for pan! I cannot believe the universe has blessed us with this instrument and it is still in a yard. If we can throw $30m to the returning team from Berlin, we can throw $30m for an architectural prize for the best steelband concert hall in the world. I do not think it is beyond the imagination of a great architect to build a house of steel to house instruments of steel, a fine concert hall that looks as though it's clad in steel and relates to a Savannah that's ringed by a small railing of burnished steel, that, at Carnival time, rises up with steel pylons and a crop of canopies and pavilions. The slapdash evolution of the Grand Stand and the North Stand at least worked as an ad hoc common-sense extension of the street, a "pavement" on either side with people watching the mas moving down the road in the middle as it were-what I'll call avenue theatre-but to box it in architecturally as a deliberate, conscious act, is pure madness. It is the determined entrapment of the very spirit of freedom that the thing is supposed to celebrate.So how do we save Carnival?
In 1986, 20 years ago, a crack team, Roy Boyke, Hollis Liverpool, Efebo Wilkinson, myself and I forget who else spent hundreds of hours discussing this and concluded the Carnival should be taken out of the Savannah. Minister of Culture Joan Yuille-Williams asked me, "Peter Minshall, what should we do with Dimanche Gras?" And I said to her, "Let it die!" It has no theatrical future. The world has changed. Champs in Concert is a hint as to where that Sunday night should go. It's not stealing from the steelbands,, we're thanking them: as usual, you pointed the direction we should go in but no one followed your lead. It should be the Night of Nights in the Caribbean, not ten people looking for a song-crown, ten people looking for a costume-crown. It's just not good contemporary entertainment.So what in the Savannah, if not a glass building?What else comes to town once a year to entertain and then leaves? Ah! The circus! How does it do it? With a tent! The design mind explodes! Something that will last for the next 20 years that is removed after the Carnival is over but is so beautiful, imaginative, so blowing and free, both to the eye and the spirit, just like the Carnival itself! The Carnival audience is not supposed to be captive! That Savannah has now trained people to go home to look at the mas on the television! That's anti-mas! What a pity you didn't have the joy of holding the hand of a complete stranger in excitement and saying, "Oh, my God! That is mas!" Enough of these horrible little porta-loos! Carnival is a building site now? Aren't we disgusted by the stench and stink? Let's design the facilities that go with our stylish new Savannah: a small city of pavilions, billowing canopies in the breeze, run the electricity underground, so that when the day comes, you just say, "Mr Prime Minister, come and turn on the switch." And between those two avenues of trees, on silver and brass pylons, recesses embedded deep in the ground all year long, waiting, those are your food areas-a pavilion for Midnight Robbers-the Robber Tent-long before Carnival, it is made known that first prize is a $150,000-I'll bet you'll see some magnificent robbers reappear in the Carnival three years hence; I bet you'll see a young Nikolai Noel or a young Mario Lewis.(BC interrupting) At those rates, you'll see a middle-aged BC Pires?(Continuing unfazed)-a pavilion for bands larger than 15 and less than 30 in number. Mas judged as art! We Caribbean people can't be top-class innovators, too? Your big bands that have been blocking that tiny little entrance, you clear a space, the entire Savannah is a parkland, where the audience can wander. The perimeter is the stage for all the big stuff. Somewhere along the line, you make a few rules: please, the gallery is only so big, the pictures can only be of such a size. Bands here need to be bands, not armies. You've made enough money. A stage is for enactment, for playing of the mas, from George Bailey to Minshall even through to Legends. Please, the mas is dying. Find a way to encourage young artists to do wonderful things. As the Carnival visits and revives our spirit, let it be a beautiful, fluttering, temporary, imaginative field of dancing cloths to give shade. Free the audience, free the Carnival! Do not destroy the best part of yourselves! Do not strive to be other than who you are. Acknowledge your own strength and beauty.
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T&T Carnival right on track
Thursday, February 22nd 2007
It is so refreshing to see that all is not lost. There is still hope for Carnival to be celebrated in a form that is culturally tasteful, artistically superior and aesthetically enchanting.
Congratulations to Brian MacFarlane. Thank you, Brian, for making me feel like I belong to this beautiful country. Thank you for making me feel that I can participate in all aspects of our culture, especially Carnival, without being degraded or ridiculed. For the first time I sat in awe as your band went through its display of pure drama, articulate co-ordination of movement and style and the artistic and intricate craftsmanship of costumes and props.
Producers and presenters of Carnival must understand that during this time the eyes of the world are on us. We must therefore present ourselves as a people of artistic ingenuity. We must show our appreciation and understanding of the cultural and historical aspects of our society. We must ensure that these are accurately and tastefully represented and presented.
This type of professionalism should not be limited to bands but should also extend to calypso, chutney and comedy, which form a major part of Carnival activities. Our calypsonians and comedians must ensure that historical, political, social and cultural issues are addressed accurately and respectfully.
This must be done with full sensitivity for the delicate emotional and psychological effects of their respective presentations on their audience.
We must ensure that there is no deliberate attempt to portray any sector of our community or culture in a manner that will cause embarrassment or concern. That does not mean that research and analysis, wittiness and humour used to highlight issues of national, international, social and cultural interest should be compromised.
Another contentious issue over the years has been costumes or lack of them and the vulgar behaviour of masqueraders. Brian MacFarlane and Peter Minshall have shown us that there is no need for nakedness and vulgarity.
We must forever be cognisant of the effect of our behaviour on the minds of our children and the rest of the world.
As a people with great talent, rhythm and energy let us keep our Carnival on the streets where it belongs. Let us portray it with all the fanfare and theatre to which it has ascended and let us keep the passion and spirit from which it has originated.
Nalini Maharaj
D'Abadie
The following is the two articles taken from the Express:
..........................................................................................................................................................................
Artist and masman, Peter Minshall, on Savannah, the heart of the Carnival.
Q: How should we approach Carnival and the Savannah?
A: What can we do that all mankind will say, "How gracious, how generous, how thoughtful of Trinidad and Tobago to give the rest of us their incredible riches!" First, we have to understand in our own heads what our incredible riches are. Start with as simple and, on the face of it, as ordinary a thing as a savannah. Which other city in the world has, at its heart, not a park all pretty with roses, but flat land with, at the other end, the Northern Range rising magically?
To have a savannah in the middle of your city is a richness to be treasured, to keep in touch with the divine. Forty years after Independence, in the Savannah, we have benches that look as though they were constructed for a penitentiary, so that criminals could not mash them up!How should they be designed?
The Savannah is so totally taken for granted. There used to be a low railing all the way 'round it with two bars, you could rest one foot on. What can we do with our Savannah in the New World? Look at the lovely shape (shows hand-drawn outline stressed to reveal the shape of a heart)! Dare we make a brilliant stainless steel railing with some sort of brass or alloy couplings?
So it's different, exciting and tells any passerby immediately, "This place is special to us. We decided to give it a frame." Beautifully designed, strong but light. Re-check the entire paved perimeter of the Savannah. Come on! We can do better than pitch or concrete! What sort of yellow brick road or silvery slate grey thing goes there?
That's just so you look at the Savannah and understand it is a treasured place, that there is no park as beautiful in the Americas. I don't think that is beyond us, to reach within ourselves, for ourselves and the world. We could replant some of the trees taken by storms to recreate a grassland, people with trees, surrounded by a fine, burnished (heart-shaped) railing. We need to respect that beautiful word: "Savannah"!Peter MinshallCarnival is connected to the Savannah?
I believe my father, as head of the tourist board, was one of the first people who took the Carnival to the Savannah. We inherited a colonial grandstand for viewing horse racing - which it's kind of reasonable to have if you're going to have anything in a savannah. The parade of the bands (went there) when bands were 300-to 400-strong. The Carnival went gaily through the city without blockage at the Savannah. However, even when I was an adolescent, late Fifties, early Sixties, I remember the so-called "bourgeois" bandleaders quarreling like mad that these steelbands with their 1,000-strong throngs of sailors were "getting in the way" and not adding anything to the Carnival. The "lower-class" steelbands were edged out. Flag Wavers of Sienna. (Edmond) Hart! One of the most brilliant bands, ever, about 300 people, a bunch of flags going clockwise, a bunch going anti-clockwise, another bunch going clockwise inside, rustle and bustle and kinetic splendour. The audience went wild. The bands were small enough to move quickly, the stage (small enough) so a little imp, a little robber could come along in-between-but already the stage was being built to accommodate bands, and not the little people of the Carnival. The stage built for it encourages the growth of the band, a money-making enterprise (which) gets bigger and bigger. This vast, arid environment is not the place for the small, the delicate, the beautiful-the individual. The bands (become) commercial juggernauts. The bar truck, the toilet truck, the this truck, the that truck, the wet-me-down truck. The costume, if you want to call it that, has been reduced to a minimal formula. The calypsonian, who is supposed to see the whites of the eyes of his audience, on this vast desert, is forced to bring on ridiculous side shows, so much so that some calypsonians get more marks for the side show than the song. Sometimes when I hear, "Great is the PNM and it will prevail!" I think, "My God, it has!" Yet I have to retract that thought because, if it wasn't the PNM, it would be somebody else. A little island people, coming into its own but not thinking its own thoughts-Las Vegas has upgraded its image to the quality of Cirque du Soleil. We, who once had the quality of Cirque du Soleil in the palms of our hands, are downgrading ours to the lowest level of Las Vegas. Let nobody fool themselves to think we're going the way of Brazil. Rio Carnival is fine. Yes, there are a few naked women but they're doing the samba. They are not dancing wine-the-place-down soca.Should there be a Carnival Centre in the Savannah?
The grandstand is being broken down but they're going to do a spectacular, contemporary, GRANDER grandstand in its place. They're going to build a mausoleum for the thing now that it's pretty well dead! A glass coffin, so we could look in at its last breath. There is a bottleneck at the Savannah. Doesn't that say something to you?
Get the hell out of it! It is no longer serving your culture. The Carnival is sick and dying, you haven't even looked at why, you just say, "We want a jewel in the crown!" To say what? What a fine government we are? And you're fooling the people because you're killing the very thing the people brought into being, their Carnival? And the tragic thing is, the people believe you!What about Panorama?
The theatre that is Panorama is muscular and visceral and tribal and community-based. Its naiveté is a large part of its beauty: all those silver fringes, that shivering tinsel, all those people pushing those carts on wheels-this happens nowhere else in the world! And you are going to take this vibrant, muscular, visceral thing-and (in pained voice) put it in a glass box? Is Panorama going to be a museum piece in Stuttgart or London? Is it that black people so want to be white they have forgotten who they are? That their potency and vitality is going to be so condomised it is left lifeless! I understand you think it may be a bow to the Carnival to give it a spectacular glass building but it's the worst thing you can do. It's like taking the thing that is dead and letting it lie in State now. Expand Panorama and impress the world with your knowledge of yourself: around the Savannah! Create a ring of steel so powerful it will reverberate throughout the Caribbean-I need a concert hall for pan! I cannot believe the universe has blessed us with this instrument and it is still in a yard. If we can throw $30m to the returning team from Berlin, we can throw $30m for an architectural prize for the best steelband concert hall in the world. I do not think it is beyond the imagination of a great architect to build a house of steel to house instruments of steel, a fine concert hall that looks as though it's clad in steel and relates to a Savannah that's ringed by a small railing of burnished steel, that, at Carnival time, rises up with steel pylons and a crop of canopies and pavilions. The slapdash evolution of the Grand Stand and the North Stand at least worked as an ad hoc common-sense extension of the street, a "pavement" on either side with people watching the mas moving down the road in the middle as it were-what I'll call avenue theatre-but to box it in architecturally as a deliberate, conscious act, is pure madness. It is the determined entrapment of the very spirit of freedom that the thing is supposed to celebrate.So how do we save Carnival?
In 1986, 20 years ago, a crack team, Roy Boyke, Hollis Liverpool, Efebo Wilkinson, myself and I forget who else spent hundreds of hours discussing this and concluded the Carnival should be taken out of the Savannah. Minister of Culture Joan Yuille-Williams asked me, "Peter Minshall, what should we do with Dimanche Gras?" And I said to her, "Let it die!" It has no theatrical future. The world has changed. Champs in Concert is a hint as to where that Sunday night should go. It's not stealing from the steelbands,, we're thanking them: as usual, you pointed the direction we should go in but no one followed your lead. It should be the Night of Nights in the Caribbean, not ten people looking for a song-crown, ten people looking for a costume-crown. It's just not good contemporary entertainment.So what in the Savannah, if not a glass building?What else comes to town once a year to entertain and then leaves? Ah! The circus! How does it do it? With a tent! The design mind explodes! Something that will last for the next 20 years that is removed after the Carnival is over but is so beautiful, imaginative, so blowing and free, both to the eye and the spirit, just like the Carnival itself! The Carnival audience is not supposed to be captive! That Savannah has now trained people to go home to look at the mas on the television! That's anti-mas! What a pity you didn't have the joy of holding the hand of a complete stranger in excitement and saying, "Oh, my God! That is mas!" Enough of these horrible little porta-loos! Carnival is a building site now? Aren't we disgusted by the stench and stink? Let's design the facilities that go with our stylish new Savannah: a small city of pavilions, billowing canopies in the breeze, run the electricity underground, so that when the day comes, you just say, "Mr Prime Minister, come and turn on the switch." And between those two avenues of trees, on silver and brass pylons, recesses embedded deep in the ground all year long, waiting, those are your food areas-a pavilion for Midnight Robbers-the Robber Tent-long before Carnival, it is made known that first prize is a $150,000-I'll bet you'll see some magnificent robbers reappear in the Carnival three years hence; I bet you'll see a young Nikolai Noel or a young Mario Lewis.(BC interrupting) At those rates, you'll see a middle-aged BC Pires?(Continuing unfazed)-a pavilion for bands larger than 15 and less than 30 in number. Mas judged as art! We Caribbean people can't be top-class innovators, too? Your big bands that have been blocking that tiny little entrance, you clear a space, the entire Savannah is a parkland, where the audience can wander. The perimeter is the stage for all the big stuff. Somewhere along the line, you make a few rules: please, the gallery is only so big, the pictures can only be of such a size. Bands here need to be bands, not armies. You've made enough money. A stage is for enactment, for playing of the mas, from George Bailey to Minshall even through to Legends. Please, the mas is dying. Find a way to encourage young artists to do wonderful things. As the Carnival visits and revives our spirit, let it be a beautiful, fluttering, temporary, imaginative field of dancing cloths to give shade. Free the audience, free the Carnival! Do not destroy the best part of yourselves! Do not strive to be other than who you are. Acknowledge your own strength and beauty.
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T&T Carnival right on track
Thursday, February 22nd 2007
It is so refreshing to see that all is not lost. There is still hope for Carnival to be celebrated in a form that is culturally tasteful, artistically superior and aesthetically enchanting.
Congratulations to Brian MacFarlane. Thank you, Brian, for making me feel like I belong to this beautiful country. Thank you for making me feel that I can participate in all aspects of our culture, especially Carnival, without being degraded or ridiculed. For the first time I sat in awe as your band went through its display of pure drama, articulate co-ordination of movement and style and the artistic and intricate craftsmanship of costumes and props.
Producers and presenters of Carnival must understand that during this time the eyes of the world are on us. We must therefore present ourselves as a people of artistic ingenuity. We must show our appreciation and understanding of the cultural and historical aspects of our society. We must ensure that these are accurately and tastefully represented and presented.
This type of professionalism should not be limited to bands but should also extend to calypso, chutney and comedy, which form a major part of Carnival activities. Our calypsonians and comedians must ensure that historical, political, social and cultural issues are addressed accurately and respectfully.
This must be done with full sensitivity for the delicate emotional and psychological effects of their respective presentations on their audience.
We must ensure that there is no deliberate attempt to portray any sector of our community or culture in a manner that will cause embarrassment or concern. That does not mean that research and analysis, wittiness and humour used to highlight issues of national, international, social and cultural interest should be compromised.
Another contentious issue over the years has been costumes or lack of them and the vulgar behaviour of masqueraders. Brian MacFarlane and Peter Minshall have shown us that there is no need for nakedness and vulgarity.
We must forever be cognisant of the effect of our behaviour on the minds of our children and the rest of the world.
As a people with great talent, rhythm and energy let us keep our Carnival on the streets where it belongs. Let us portray it with all the fanfare and theatre to which it has ascended and let us keep the passion and spirit from which it has originated.
Nalini Maharaj
D'Abadie
Sunday, April 1, 2007
T&T MAS BAND OF THE YEAR AND PAST WINNERS
Brian Macfarlane's presentation 'INDIA - The Story of Boyie' took both 'Large Band of the Year' and 'Downtown Band of the Year' crowns. Macfarlane placed 2nd for 'Large Band of the Year' and 1st for 'Downtown Band of the Year' in 2006 and was happy to receive honours for both categories as this marks the first major victory for the designer.
Macfarlane has also announced he has already started plans for next year. The presentation will be a 'story' based on 'EARTH'.
Check out past winners at:
http://www.tntisland.com/botyhof.html
Macfarlane has also announced he has already started plans for next year. The presentation will be a 'story' based on 'EARTH'.
Check out past winners at:
http://www.tntisland.com/botyhof.html
Friday, March 30, 2007
T&T Panorrama Large Band Category winners 1963-2007
Trinidad & Tobago Conventional Panorama Hall of Fame (Large Category)
http://www.tntisland.com/panhof.html
http://www.tntisland.com/panhof.html
Thursday, March 29, 2007
T&T Road March 1932-2007
Wed Feb 21st '07 ~ Machel Montano's 'JUMBIE' copped the 2007 ROAD MARCH title by the widest margin in Carnival history. The Kernal Roberts penned Carnival favorite recorded 388 plays, while 2nd place Sherwayne Winchester's 'OPEN D'GATE' was played a total of 34 times.
Machel's 'JUMBIE DANCE' could be seen all through the streets of Port-of-Spain over the 2-day Carnival.
Songwriter Kernal Roberts was also responsible for Carnival 2007 party favorites 'Down D Road','Higher Than High' and 'Light It Up' (ft Patrice Roberts). The win marks back to back Road March titles for Kernal & Machel as 'Band of D Year' also took top honours in 2006.
Check out the following list and see if you remember these cultural hits.
1932 King Radio Tiger Tom Play Tiger Cat
1933 King Radio Wash Pan Wash
1934 Dougla After Johnny Drink Me Rum
1935 Lion Dingolay Oy
1936 Lion Advantage Could Never Done
1937 Lion Netty Netty
1938 Lion No Norah Darling
1939 King Radio Mathilda
1940 Beginner Run Yuh Run
1941 Lion Whoopsin Whoopsin
1942 - 45 No Carnival – War
1946 No Competition
1947 Pharoah King Pharoah
1948 Melody Canaan Barrow
1949 Wonder Ramgoat Baptism
1950 Killer In a Calabash
1951 Terror Tiny Davis
1952 Spit Fire Post Post
1953 Spit Fire Bow Wow Wow
1954 Blakie Steel Band Clash
1955 Happy Wonderer North American Ballad
1956 Sparrow Jean and Dinah
1957 Valerie North American Ballad
1958 Sparrow Pay As You Earn
1959 Sparrow Mae Mae
1960 Sparrow Royal Gaol
1961 Sparrow Royal
1962 Blakie Maria
1963 Kitchener The Road
1964 Kitchener This Is Mas
1965 Kitchener My Pussin
1966 Sparrow Obeah Wedding
1967 Kitchener Sixty Seven
1968 Kitchener Miss Tourist
1969 Sparrow Sa Sa Ya
1970 Kitchener Margie
1971 Kitchener Madison Square
1972 Sparrow Drunk and Disorderly
1973 Kitchener Rainorama
1974 Shadow Bass Man
1975 Kitchener Tribute to Winston Spree
1976 Kitchener Flag Woman
1977 Calypso Rose Tempo
1978 Calypso Rose Soca Jam
1979 Poser Smoke Ah Watty
1980 Blue Boy Soca Baptist
1981 Blue Boy Ethel
1982 Penguin Deputy Essential
1983 Blue Boy Rebecca
1984 Sparrow Doh Back Back
1985 Crazy Soucoyant
1986 David Rudder Bahia Girl
1987 Duke Thunder
1988 Tambu This Party Is It
1989 Tambu Free Up
1990 Tambu We Ain’t Going Home
1991 Super Blue Get Something and Wave
1992 Super Blue Jab Jab
1993 Super Blue Bacchanal Time
1994 Preacher Jump and Wave
1995 Super Blue Signal To Lara
1996 Nigel Lewis Movin
1997 Machel Montano Big Truck
1998 Wayne Rodriguez Footsteps
1999 Sanell Dempster River
2000 Tied
Pump Up by Super Blue Carnival Come Back Again by Iwer George
2001 Shadow Strangers
2002 Naya George Trinidad
2003 1st - Faye-Ann Lyons - Display (171)2nd - Destra & Machel - It's Carnival (134)3rd - KMC - Carnival Rag
2004 1st : - Look De Band Coming by Shurwayne Winchester 2nd: - Bonnie and Clyde by Destra
2005 Dead or Alive by Shurwayne Winchester
2006 Band of the Year by Patrice Roberts & Machel Montano
Machel's 'JUMBIE DANCE' could be seen all through the streets of Port-of-Spain over the 2-day Carnival.
Songwriter Kernal Roberts was also responsible for Carnival 2007 party favorites 'Down D Road','Higher Than High' and 'Light It Up' (ft Patrice Roberts). The win marks back to back Road March titles for Kernal & Machel as 'Band of D Year' also took top honours in 2006.
Check out the following list and see if you remember these cultural hits.
1932 King Radio Tiger Tom Play Tiger Cat
1933 King Radio Wash Pan Wash
1934 Dougla After Johnny Drink Me Rum
1935 Lion Dingolay Oy
1936 Lion Advantage Could Never Done
1937 Lion Netty Netty
1938 Lion No Norah Darling
1939 King Radio Mathilda
1940 Beginner Run Yuh Run
1941 Lion Whoopsin Whoopsin
1942 - 45 No Carnival – War
1946 No Competition
1947 Pharoah King Pharoah
1948 Melody Canaan Barrow
1949 Wonder Ramgoat Baptism
1950 Killer In a Calabash
1951 Terror Tiny Davis
1952 Spit Fire Post Post
1953 Spit Fire Bow Wow Wow
1954 Blakie Steel Band Clash
1955 Happy Wonderer North American Ballad
1956 Sparrow Jean and Dinah
1957 Valerie North American Ballad
1958 Sparrow Pay As You Earn
1959 Sparrow Mae Mae
1960 Sparrow Royal Gaol
1961 Sparrow Royal
1962 Blakie Maria
1963 Kitchener The Road
1964 Kitchener This Is Mas
1965 Kitchener My Pussin
1966 Sparrow Obeah Wedding
1967 Kitchener Sixty Seven
1968 Kitchener Miss Tourist
1969 Sparrow Sa Sa Ya
1970 Kitchener Margie
1971 Kitchener Madison Square
1972 Sparrow Drunk and Disorderly
1973 Kitchener Rainorama
1974 Shadow Bass Man
1975 Kitchener Tribute to Winston Spree
1976 Kitchener Flag Woman
1977 Calypso Rose Tempo
1978 Calypso Rose Soca Jam
1979 Poser Smoke Ah Watty
1980 Blue Boy Soca Baptist
1981 Blue Boy Ethel
1982 Penguin Deputy Essential
1983 Blue Boy Rebecca
1984 Sparrow Doh Back Back
1985 Crazy Soucoyant
1986 David Rudder Bahia Girl
1987 Duke Thunder
1988 Tambu This Party Is It
1989 Tambu Free Up
1990 Tambu We Ain’t Going Home
1991 Super Blue Get Something and Wave
1992 Super Blue Jab Jab
1993 Super Blue Bacchanal Time
1994 Preacher Jump and Wave
1995 Super Blue Signal To Lara
1996 Nigel Lewis Movin
1997 Machel Montano Big Truck
1998 Wayne Rodriguez Footsteps
1999 Sanell Dempster River
2000 Tied
Pump Up by Super Blue Carnival Come Back Again by Iwer George
2001 Shadow Strangers
2002 Naya George Trinidad
2003 1st - Faye-Ann Lyons - Display (171)2nd - Destra & Machel - It's Carnival (134)3rd - KMC - Carnival Rag
2004 1st : - Look De Band Coming by Shurwayne Winchester 2nd: - Bonnie and Clyde by Destra
2005 Dead or Alive by Shurwayne Winchester
2006 Band of the Year by Patrice Roberts & Machel Montano
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