Local masquerade has gone nowhere in 30 years, and that’s why I believe that today’s revellers are only interested in the party aspect of Kadooment and parading in the skimpiest of costumes.
They are lewd because they have nothing creative to display but breasts, bellies and bumpers.
We often lament the wanton display of flesh as an example of falling standards; but honestly, if our costumes, especially the designs for kings and queens of the bands, are still stuck somewhere in the 1970s, why should today’s revellers care about creative masquerade?
Watching Grand and Junior Kadooment, the kings’ and queens’ costumes which are supposed to be the standout pieces on parade, representing what each band and section stands for, are nothing more than bent wire covered with fabric, supposedly representing the elements, birds, animal/reptile life and a few other themes.
For example, I have watched band queens depicting butterflies but the spectator would only know they were butterflies because presenter Margaret Allman-Goddard said so. And this is because designers, some quite experienced, put together pieces of wire and hand-painted fabric and said “well done”.
No! The designer, if depicting a butterfly, mosquito or sheep, must study the creature in minute detail and try to replicate every contour and movement, so that by the time the costume goes before the Kadooment judges, it looks like a giant version of the creature. Have we learnt nothing from Peter Minshall, who lectured and conducted workshops here several times?
We glibly talk of masquerade in Trinidad and Tobago; but Trini mas’ is far more than partying, thongs and body paint. When you witness the kings and queens of the bands – at the junior and adult levels in Port-of-Spain – they are such awesome replicas that one can only marvel at the quantity and quality of the material, the expense and the hours of painstaking work involved.
Barbados, after 38 years of Crop Over, is nowhere near to that level, unfortunately. Why aren’t we investing in creating elaborate and professionally-finished costumes, instead of these simple, mundane pieces every year? Is it the recession?
I am tired of hearing designers tell the public about the Trinis in their camps teaching Bajans wire-bending. After nearly 40 years, with improved technology as well as graphic art skills? Where in all this are the designers being churned out yearly from the Barbados Community College?
Masquerade designers should be sourcing the types of materials we need to fashion real-life-looking versions of the creatures we try to create each year for bands’ kings and queens. The painted pieces of cloth over wire carried by unwieldy kings and queens no longer cut it. Do some research!
I watched with embarrassment Saturday a depiction of a caterpillar going through the butterfly metamorphosis. The poor Junior Kadooment queen was falling under the costume and needed an attendant to tear the caterpillar’s cloth in order for her to emerge as a “butterfly”, wearing a pink suit with clipped-on wings.
I’m not discouraging local designers, some of whom are known for occasional flashes of brilliance, but if you’re not going to invest the time and resources to reach the international standard of masquerade for your bands’ kings and queens with the aim of exporting Bajan mas’, then just produce party bands. At least some money will be made and party animals will be happy.
But know this: with the proliferation of near-nudity of other countries’ mas’, skilful design as an art form is still alive and well in Trinidad and other major carnivals – especially in the bands’ kings, queens and section leaders.
The National Cultural Foundation needs to send young designers to Trinidad, not for a week but for lengthy periods, in order for them to see what it means to live and breathe mas’, because we’re still offering amateur-looking kings and queens that can’t be exported anywhere.
The one or two local designers who top the prizes every Crop Over are merely the best of an elementary bunch who seem content to “come every year” without attempts at designing excellence.
In fact, if we compare the kings and queens of Kadooment bands designed by Marcia Chandler and a few others in the 1980s, it would surprise many that those bygone designs were better than today’s.
As a result, we have no Bajan indigenous mas’. What we do have are indigenous elements, but the designer who tried hardest to replicate and keep them alive in masquerade was the late Winston Jordan. Nearly everyone else has been generic.
But if you’re going to be generic, be good at it.
