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Carnival Performance Aesthetics Carnival Performance Aesthetics: Trinidad Carnival and Art making in the Diaspora Adeola Patricia Dewis Cardiff University 2014 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION p.1 Chapter ONE: History of the Trinidad Carnival p.24 Chapter TWO: Carnival and Performance p.52 Chapter THREE: Towards a Concept of Mas’ p.98 Chapter FOUR: Mama dat is Mas’ art project Review p.152 Chapter FIVE: Conclusion – Project AfterWords p.199 Bibliography p.220 Appendix p.229 ii List of Illustrations 1. Trinidad Carnival 1896. Image courtesy whensteeltalks.ning.com (p.31) 2. Jouvay reveler 2003. Image courtesy Wendell Manwarren (p.39) 3. Sailor Mas’, Port of Spain Trinidad 2011. Image courtesy Scott Dewis (p.44) 4. Pretty mas’ costume. Image courtesy I-sanna Gibbons-Fideler (p.47) 5. cAnfAs in Cardiff Carnival. Image courtesy Wahda Placide (p.102) 6. Symbiosis, CAGE Gallery Edna Manley College, Jamaica. Image courtesy the artist Marlon Griffith (p.142) 7. Cerra del Aripo, Caterpilla. Image courtesy Davlin Thomas (p.145) 8. Mama dat is Mas’, the Shrine Station. Image by John Collingswood (p.178) 9. Mama dat is Mas’, performance still 01. Image by Catriona Abuneke (p.181) 10. Mama dat is Mas’, performance still 02. Image by Catriona Abuneke (p.182) iii Abstract This thesis focuses on the ways in which identity and ritual converge within the emancipatory performances of the Trinidad Carnival and the Caribbean inspired Carnivals of Notting Hill and Cardiff. The work looks at the ways in which Carnival performances can be interpreted in order to investigate how these interpretations can be practically utilized within art-making or art presentation. The thesis develops an innovative reading of the word mas’ (masquerade/mask) offering new perspectives that can serve as a nucleus for ways of engaging with and analyzing Carnival. The consideration of mas’ as a performance activity with traits that can be manifested within and outside of the Carnival environment is highly relevant and has been applied in my practical art experiment called Mama dat is Mas’. The project also aims to analyze the ways in which re-interpretations of mas’ can engage with issues of social anxiety and feelings of displacement. iv Acknowledgements Thank you to the amalgamation of energy and spiritual experiences (African, Christian, Rastafarian) that have guided my path. Thank you to my ancestors, those that crossed the Atlantic, suffered and fought and forged a life in the New World in order to allow me to be on this journey. Through you I experience Carnival as an expression of knowing and becoming. Thank you to Cardiff University for accepting my proposal and for awarding me a President’s Scholarship in the Reconstructing Multiculturalism programme which paid my fees. I would not have been able to do this without you, I am truly grateful. Thank you to my supervisors: Professor Chris Weedon and Professor Radhika Mohanram for your patience, encouragement and support not only in the writing and editing of the thesis, but also in the other projects and exhibitions that came out of the ideas and concepts of this research. Thank you to my interviewees: Rawle Gibbons, Lady Ann Jacobs, Peter Minshall, Ashton (Spookie) Fournillier, Brian MacFarlane, Michael (Filo) Phillips, Marvin George, Camille Quamina, Brendon LaCaille, Reynaldo Mohammed, Risha Gibbons, Marcus Waldron, Curtis Jalim, June Campbell-Davies, Ffion Campbell- Davies, Steve Fletcher, Adrian Spinola, Sallie MacLennan, Catherine Legget, Cathryn MacShane, Mica and Niomi Parris, Betty Campbell, Amaru Chatawa, Phil Babot, Davlin Thomas and Mary-Anne Roberts for sharing your experiences and allowing me to use your examples as vital primary source material. Thank you Tony Hall, Richard Young, Chris Cozier, Michael La Rose, Marlon Griffith and Corey Gilkes for your inspiring work and to my friends for your constant words of encouragement. v Thank you to my family in Trinidad and Wales whose constant support, guidance and feedback directly contributed to the completion of this work. My father Rawle Gibbons for your work and research and for being willing and available for feedback and informal conversations that added to the context of the work, my mother Patricia Gibbons for your encouragement and example of love, sacrifice and family management and to my sisters Tinuke, I-sanna and Rawle-Ann Risha for your contributions of lived experiences, words of support and love regardless. Thank you to my husband Scott Dewis for supporting all my dreams and for not only being a significant help but also for allowing me the hours within which to write-up, Jon and Judith Dewis for your selfless baby- sitting time and support and to my boys Logaan, Rohan and Taran, for being my inspiration. May this work help to contribute to a deeper understanding of your heritage and your creative, empowering potential in mas’. I love you, Ase, ase, ase. vi INTRODUCTION A people’s art is the genesis of their freedom.1 The Trinidad Carnival can be seen as both a spectacle2 and a personal performance ritual. Mas’3 (as the Carnival performance is described by Trinidadians) fills the street at Carnival time and it is not only manifested in the artistry that explodes on a grand scale on the streets. Weeks before Carnival Monday and Tuesday, the mas’ is also visible in the disposition of the people, the way they walk, the way they play the Carnival music in their cars and from their porches, the way they dress and dress-up – the whole island is throbbing with anticipation. Having booked tickets in advance, those that wish to avoid the ‘heat’ of the season escape to the sister island of Tobago, go on a remote retreat or stay at home. The rest of the islanders count down the days, hours and minutes to start their annual ritual, which begins with the early Monday morning celebration of Jouvay.4 This thesis develops an interpretation of the word ‘mas’’ and uses that interpretation to explore the ways in which Carnival performance 1 C. Jones, ‘Caribbean Carnival 1959. Souvenir Program’, quoted in C. B. Davies’ Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2007), p. 167. 2 Here, the use of the word spectacle refers to a visually striking image as opposed to the exploration of the Yoruba Spectacle discussed by Henry John Drewal and Margret Thompson Drewal in their book Gelede (1990) as “a fleeting, transitory phenomenon”, one that is concerned with bringing manifestations of spirit to the physical world, although the Drewal and Drewal research contribute to my later considerations of mas’ performance. H. and M. Drewal, Gelede: Art and Female Power among the Yoruba (Indiana University Press, USA, 1990), p. 1. 3 The word mas’(or mas) comes from the Trinidadian vernacular and as such, there are variations in spelling. In this study I favour the spelling option with the apostrophe as, in my view, it represents a sense of lineage (connection to another word), a sense of loss (apostrophe substituting something that is no longer there) and also shows potential for re-invention. In that regard mas’ (with the apostrophe) can be aligned metaphorically as significant to the evolution of notions of Caribbean-ness. 4 Jouvay – Jou-vé (jou-vay, jou-vé, jou-vert, j’ou-vert, jour ou-vert) The beginning of the carnival celebrations before dawn on the Monday morning of the week in the Christian observance of Lent will begin; it is set going officially at 5am with street dancing to steel-band music and people playing ole mas individually or in bands. R. Allsopp (ed), The Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage: with a French & Spanish Supplement (UWI Press, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, 2003), p. 317. 1 can be utilized within art spaces in the diaspora in order to address and empower those who feel some sense of displacement. Within the general Trinidadian society ‘to play mas’ usually refers to the activity of wearing and dancing a ‘pretty’ costume, within a Carnival band on Carnival Monday and Carnival Tuesday. To play mas’ although commonly understood in that context, can also have visual and performance-based manifestations within the early morning Jouvay celebrations. The word mas’ is also inherently a part of the Trinidadian vernacular so that within and outside of the Carnival season, the word mas’ can be used to describe certain scenarios. Mas’ can therefore be variously interpreted as a performance within the Carnival Monday and Tuesday, within the Jouvay or outside of the Carnival season as a whole. I wish to emphasize a performative connotation of mas’ that suggests ‘a type of bacchanal.’ Within the Carnival context, mas’ performances permit an empowering freedom for the reveller through a re-presentation of self via costume and/or performance or play. It is that empowering aspect of performance that I am interested in accessing when considering how mas’ can be interpreted within art spaces to the benefit of those who feel some sense of displacement. Playwright Tony Hall defines his use of the word mas’ in the context of his Carnival Monday presentation 2014 in an interview with the Trinidad Express newspaper. Hall states: I mean playing mas, as opposed to playing Carnival, mas is what we do… Mas is a specific mechanism that has to do with spirit possession and masking to reveal inner energy. It is an ancient apparatus important to 2 our being. Mas, as defined by [economist, professor, intellectual] Lloyd Best is being whatever you’re supposed to be, to do what you have to do.5 The above quotation from Hall suggests that mas’ is empowering as it allows for the expression of an inner self and allows us to “be whatever [we’re] supposed to be.” Hall emphasizes a distinction between mas’ and Carnival that is viscerally understood by Carnival revellers and spectators.
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