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Contact Pulse at bloodline@ttol.co.tt
Whither goes T&T Carnival [&
PAN]?
There is
no exhibition space in T&T to display outstanding Carnival
costumes like Peter Minshall’s “The Adoration of Hiroshima,”
from the 1984 band Callaloo.
One of the perennial problems with T&T Carnival is
too many of the people in key positions of influence,
including judges, who determine its direction, progress and
longevity are people who have never created, achieved or made
any significant or valid mark in the development or evolution
of the damn festival.
Another problem is that too few of Carnival’s
custodians have any vision or are capable of respecting or
appreciating the festival as a serious industry; one which can
make a significant contribution to the nation’s overall GDP.
They can’t even fully comprehend Carnival’s potential as a
tremendous earner of much more foreign revenue than it
currently attracts, neither can they conceptualise the
dynamics or legalities required by the international
entertainment market.
Competition is also killing “we Carnival” — because of
the amount of subjectivity and bias that pervade judges’
panels and because our art should not be subjected to
competition and adjudication at all.
It is why avant-garde progressive musicians like Len
“Boogsie” Sharpe, Terrence “BJ” Marcelle and Liam Teague will
probably never win a national Panorama title for many years to
come and why we end up with the same seven bands in every
final.
The custodians of “we Carnival” can’t conceive or see
beyond their nostrils, so no planning, funding, development
programmes, nada, nothing, zilch is being done, or is ever
done, before the end of November preceding Carnival.
It’s because of no planning as well that when pan
technicians like Wallace Austin, Bertram Kellman and Bertie
Marshall, masmen like the Bailey brothers and Follette Eustace
die, we will probably have to hire pan tuners from Britain and
Sweden, or bring in costumes from Taiwan and Brazil. We seem
incapable, mentally, socially, culturally, spiritually of
seeing the bigger picture and planning ahead, anticipating the
future and perpetuation of our arts and culture.
It is why no one can go anywhere in T&T and see a
costume which won King or Queen of Carnival on display at any
museum or facility. It is why last Thursday I had to beg
Ministry of Community Development official Norvan Fullerton to
“sneak” four American visitors into a private Ministry
function at Hilton Trinidad, where Exodus was performing, so
they could hear what pan sounds like (in “the land of the
steelband”) before they returned to the States the following
day.
After half a century of pan, and its ascendancy as
“the national instrument” of T&T, where is its performing
facility? Where does a visitor go during the week to see and
hear pan played?
Next year marks 25 years since I’ve been in journalism
deliberately deciding, upon leaving my lucrative profession in
computer science, to consciously dedicate half of my life to
try and do something positive to uplift all aspects of T&T
culture. But I fear that I will return to my Maker and will
not have made one iota of difference to the morass of
mediocrity and unprofessionalism I met in Carnival and the
arts in 1980.
(mailto:bloodline@ttol.co.tt)
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