Wednesday 17th February, 2010
Imagine taking months to build a costume, enduring sleepless nights as you put every inch of your being into making this mas that you will showcase on Carnival Sunday night.
Imagine putting your hard-earned money aside to play king or queen, sacrificing many things, so you can make a statement with your costume, so you can bring enlightenment, enjoyment and artistry to the people on the night of the Big Show. Imagine waiting for your moment of glory, when you exhale the stress, the sleeplessness, the money pressures and let out the breath of a people on Dimanche Gras night.
Imagine the moment... and then... instead of shining, wining, celebrating, you are whisked on and off the stage so quickly that you don’t even know your moment has come.
Imagine researching, analysing, rhyming, composing a masterful political, social commentary, waiting for your moment to educate and uplift the people on Carnival Sunday night. Imagine thinking about your props, considering drama, theatre, caricature, so that you put on, in true calypso style, a show on the night of the Big Show. Imagine assessing your role as a calypsonian and staying, despite the ’fight down’, true to this responsibility on Dimanche Gras night.
Imagine the moment... and then... instead of teaching, reaching, celebrating, you are put on the stage to compete with smut and gospelypso and you don’t even understand how you could all be in the same boat.
Imagine putting your hard-earned money aside to play king or queen, sacrificing many things, so you can make a statement with your costume, so you can bring enlightenment, enjoyment and artistry to the people on the night of the Big Show. Imagine waiting for your moment of glory, when you exhale the stress, the sleeplessness, the money pressures and let out the breath of a people on Dimanche Gras night.
Imagine the moment... and then... instead of shining, wining, celebrating, you are whisked on and off the stage so quickly that you don’t even know your moment has come.
Imagine researching, analysing, rhyming, composing a masterful political, social commentary, waiting for your moment to educate and uplift the people on Carnival Sunday night. Imagine thinking about your props, considering drama, theatre, caricature, so that you put on, in true calypso style, a show on the night of the Big Show. Imagine assessing your role as a calypsonian and staying, despite the ’fight down’, true to this responsibility on Dimanche Gras night.
Imagine the moment... and then... instead of teaching, reaching, celebrating, you are put on the stage to compete with smut and gospelypso and you don’t even understand how you could all be in the same boat.
There are so many things that need fixing, re-arranging, adjusting, yet the powers that be put us through commissions of enquiry and wasted apologies with no end in sight. Yet, just so, these same powers that be decide to reconfigure Dimanche Gras without even telling us anything.
The show starts early, without warning, so the pelau is still cooking in the pot while seven queens pass. The show runs quickly so that pretended efficiency could upstage creativity. The show ends early, and if it wasn’t for the brilliance of mas and the excellence of calypso, we might not have known that this was the ’Big Show’.
Isn’t the end of Dimanche Gras supposed to be the beginning of Jouvert and Carnival? Does Jouvert now start at minutes to midnight? Is the rushing down of the Big Show an attempt to address the crime problem that the powers that be say we don’t have?
Now consider that Dimanche Gras is the showcase for the creative, conscious aspect of Carnival and ask yourself what is really happening here. No appearance by the Extempo King? No appearance by the Junior King and Queen of mas and calypso? No appearance by the Chutney King? Barely any appearance by the competing kings and queens? Excellence in calypso pitted against mediocrity?
Now ask yourself,-why wasn’t the Soca Monarch show rushed down and finished early? How come the entrants for Soca Monarch were given the opportunity to entertain the people, while the kings and queens were barely given a stage?
Who tells us that the main criteria for judging Soca Monarch is based on crowd response but fails to tell us, based on some who were selected as the final 15, what the criteria for judging Calypso Monarch is? Isn’t putting consciousness to compete against smut doing to calypso what putting creativity to compete against bikinis did to mas?
Could this be yet another attempt to frustrate the true artists and the conscious creativity in Carnival?
Yet despite the fight-down and the frustration, there will always be those who recognise the responsibility of their roles and who put art before self and nation before politics. Take comfort in the fact that there were many young calypsonians in Dimanche Gras who were taught by you and who will protect the art form, take comfort in the fact that many of the Kings and Queens were the children of true masmakers.
Most of all, know that for those of us who know that Carnival is not merely a palancing, flag-waving section, you continue to inspire and reach and teach; in the words of Avatar, we see you.
To you, on behalf of all of us, I say thank-you.
Joanne Haynes
via e-mail
Over the years, people have complained the Dimache Gras Show and many others, including Panorama, are too long, too many and not time efficient. This letter to the Express seems to indicate that the opposite happened, the cultural products were put on show but they did not move with the timetable set, so they were rushed off stage.
How could this problem be addressed? Less Kings and Queens? 5 - 10 minutes maximum to cross the stage? Shouldn't VAPA be the place for this to happen so there is less breeze and dust?
so was the production about the display of the carnival kings and queens, the calypsonians, etc. or was it about having
The show starts early, without warning, so the pelau is still cooking in the pot while seven queens pass. The show runs quickly so that pretended efficiency could upstage creativity. The show ends early, and if it wasn’t for the brilliance of mas and the excellence of calypso, we might not have known that this was the ’Big Show’.
Isn’t the end of Dimanche Gras supposed to be the beginning of Jouvert and Carnival? Does Jouvert now start at minutes to midnight? Is the rushing down of the Big Show an attempt to address the crime problem that the powers that be say we don’t have?
Now consider that Dimanche Gras is the showcase for the creative, conscious aspect of Carnival and ask yourself what is really happening here. No appearance by the Extempo King? No appearance by the Junior King and Queen of mas and calypso? No appearance by the Chutney King? Barely any appearance by the competing kings and queens? Excellence in calypso pitted against mediocrity?
Now ask yourself,-why wasn’t the Soca Monarch show rushed down and finished early? How come the entrants for Soca Monarch were given the opportunity to entertain the people, while the kings and queens were barely given a stage?
Who tells us that the main criteria for judging Soca Monarch is based on crowd response but fails to tell us, based on some who were selected as the final 15, what the criteria for judging Calypso Monarch is? Isn’t putting consciousness to compete against smut doing to calypso what putting creativity to compete against bikinis did to mas?
Could this be yet another attempt to frustrate the true artists and the conscious creativity in Carnival?
Yet despite the fight-down and the frustration, there will always be those who recognise the responsibility of their roles and who put art before self and nation before politics. Take comfort in the fact that there were many young calypsonians in Dimanche Gras who were taught by you and who will protect the art form, take comfort in the fact that many of the Kings and Queens were the children of true masmakers.
Most of all, know that for those of us who know that Carnival is not merely a palancing, flag-waving section, you continue to inspire and reach and teach; in the words of Avatar, we see you.
To you, on behalf of all of us, I say thank-you.
Joanne Haynes
via e-mail
Over the years, people have complained the Dimache Gras Show and many others, including Panorama, are too long, too many and not time efficient. This letter to the Express seems to indicate that the opposite happened, the cultural products were put on show but they did not move with the timetable set, so they were rushed off stage.
How could this problem be addressed? Less Kings and Queens? 5 - 10 minutes maximum to cross the stage? Shouldn't VAPA be the place for this to happen so there is less breeze and dust?
so was the production about the display of the carnival kings and queens, the calypsonians, etc. or was it about having
No comments:
Post a Comment