VincyMas ’23 – We down in de meat

When you begin hearing calypso judging underway, then you know that where Carnival is concerned this year, “we down in de meat”, in other words Vincy Mas fully in flow. After the usual early clashes between administrators and the real creators, from pan, calypso and mas (PanKaiMas), it seems that we have gotten beyond the bacchanal stage and are settling down, determined to make the most of the 2023 festival.

Of course, there are still many concerns, but it seems that at the insistence of the PanKaiMas leadership, there is a determination to keep the key components at the centre of all activities and to build around them and not just see them in a peripheral role.

It seems though, that in spite of assurances, various symposia and other discussions, we are still unclear of what constitutes the essence of our Festival.

The development of other regional mid-year Carnivals over the years has created somewhat of a competition between the Eastern Caribbean states as to which one has the “best” festival, attracting the most visitors etc. Our response has been to brand our Carnival as “the hottest” one in the region. I am not sure that there is a common understanding just what “hottest” means, but that is how we are selling our product.

We may have set in train a number of varying approaches based on differing understandings of what this “hottest” means. Yet it is clear that developing a “total package” for locals and our guests alike must be part of this, a necessary package. But we may ask, at the expense of what? How do we define the central core around which we build and develop our Festival?

Variation, experimentation and differentiation are all necessary but in it all we must never forget our roots.

Carnival is not just another Music Festival or Summer Festival which have appeared over the past few decades. It is much more than that and is grounded in our historical reality, developing as the response of Caribbean people to a specific set of circumstances. It is important therefore that we remember and maintain, albeit changing circumstances, the essence of this Festival.

Trinidad and Tobago, which certainly has the most developed of the regional carnivals, earning itself the name, “the Mecca” of Carnival in the region, continues to have its own battles to preserve the soul of the Festival. Many of these battles have been lost over time but the cultural war continues. There is an ongoing battle which has insisted that time and space be provided for traditional mas, kaiso and pan, to various degrees.

In our case, the pressures of maintaining an audience and popularity caused the Carnival Development Committee (as it was then), to do like the telephone companies are doing today, that is to “bundle” the various aspects of Tuesday Mas together. The various categories developed over the years were all collapsed into one, the Band of the Year category.

In the process, out went the baby with the bathwater. There had been various categories of competition mas, catering to and attracting specific sectors of our population – historical, original, fancy, cowboys and Indian, African, war/sailor mas etc. These catered for small bands and in some cases specific communities, but this element seemed not to have been taken into consideration as we tried to “grow” and popularize our mas. It is to the eternal credit of Junior

‘Melbourne’ Constance and Owen Ralph, that they were, under tremendous difficulties, able to adapt to the new realities which seemed not to cater for their original portrayals.

Now this is not any nostalgic appeal to the past, as we develop, we must adapt, but find ways to keep one’s essence. In the Carnival “Mecca” too there were, and are, similar battles. Commercial pressures and organizing the Festival in a modernized context bring with them new challenges but Carnival’s beauty lies in its creativity, and this must include creative solutions to new challenges.

In Trinidad and Tobago space is still provided, among all the glitter and glamour, among all the wine and dine, among all the commercialization and dollarization, for traditional mas, even in a much scaled down scale.

On Carnival Monday before the big bands emerge, there is room for all these categories crossing the stage and there are specific re-enactments of important events which gave rise to Carnival as well as the portrayals of traditional elements of Carnival including at J’ouvert.

I would hope that when our CDC officials visit T&T, they would take some time to observe these as well. There is room in all this to enable us to embrace our past and use it to enhance our future.

• Renwick Rose is a community activist and social commentator.