More Mas Medicine

Carnival is one of the most surprising festivals in the world.
It is a time when the Yamina Warriors, black men led by an elderly rastafarian, portray Native American warriors in enthusiastically feathered headdress in faux tribal dances, all to the rhythms of cutting Tassa drums.
It is a time when the Rhapsody Steel and Brass Orchestra (above) roams the streets playing a curious blend of small band steel and big band brass.
But we are in danger of losing the very thing that makes Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival celebrations so very special, the quirky, individualistic touches that are such a personal expression of our creative nature.

There is a strange and terrible symbiosis between today's masqueraders and the cameras they play to. After almost three decades of covering Carnival, I've seen a steady evolution from masqueraders who were flattered by the attention of the camera through masqueraders who enthusiastically court the attention of the camera to today's lunacy, in which camera and masquerader are both engaged in recording something that hardly reflects the original idea of Carnival at all.
These images have now become the visual language of Carnival, an abrupt, sexually charged shorthand of collaged photographs that distils two days of partying and masquerade down to lunges toward the camera of hip and face.
For the second year, the mas took place on "the road" a stretch of roadway just to the north-east of Prince's Building grounds, now the scene of massive construction works geared toward the establishment of a culture academy.

Along the road, bleachers were constructed to accommodate a south facing audience who viewed Carnival as it petered out passing the judging area through the keyhole arches of trees which shadowed the players as they wandered away from "the stage."
That stage won the attention of both NCCTV and CNMG, with CNMG offering the feed of masqueraders as they faced the judges and just a few yards on, NCCTV picked up the parade as it meandered along.
Why?
With two state underwritten media outlets offering a live feed of Carnival, why not offer more variety and push NCCTV to offer feeds from other parts of Trinidad and Tobago which were putting on their own celebrations?

What would it have been like to switch between mas in Downtown, Chaguanas, San Fernando and Tunapuna when nothing special was happening at the Savannah? Why not create a special space along the route where the DJs can be easily silenced and small bands can have a space in the festival that respects their scale in the same way that the four lane wide runways at the Savannah and Downtown respect the scale of big bands?
Management of the media resource was just slightly more polite this year but just as ineffectual. The space allocated for coverage by the media was largely patronised by non-media workers and the toilets quickly became appalling.

Photographic views and angles were often blocked by crowds of unaccredited photographers and the large banners that announce to the judges what band and section they are looking at.
Why are these banners even necessary anymore? Why not have electronic banners in the judges area that are guided by input from masquerader representatives which display this information in a clear and accessible way?
Why not ask AMPOTT to appoint a team of representatives for photography and video to plan proper media access for Carnival without leaving the job up to people who have never eaten the dust of tramping feet or been jostled by every enthusiastic spectator with a camera?

When a popular band appears at the Savannah venue, it is quickly mobbed by people with cameras, some of them wearing spurious "media" t-shirts and badges that were clearly not sanctioned by any NCC organisation.
The media mix at Carnival is changing rapidly, as bloggers and websites offering massive collections of photographs from the festival feed the public need to know both here and abroad. Large bands are also providing masqueraders with their own photographic services, and those photographers will join the coverage on Carnival Tuesday.
If there is to be any real policing of the media area on Carnival Tuesday, then the new realities must be recognised.

Issue a reasonable number of media passes to bloggers and image aggregation websites, who do a better job of keeping people up to date with detailed developments in Carnival than most established media and offer vast databases of photographs that may be poor in quality but are also intimidating in their depth of coverage.
Issue band-specific passes to photographers working with a specific band during the day to expedite their coverage when their band crosses a venue but won't allow them to stick around after the band has moved on.
Related stories: BitDepth #614, Making Mas.

Tags: Carnival