Carnival Seminar

UWI Students from Mona, Jamaica Campus
Normandie Hotel, St Ann’s
29th May 2007

The Carnival Institute of Trinidad and Trinidad and Tobago as part of their outreach program hosted Students from the UWI Mona Campus. This one-day seminar presented various aspects of Trinidad culture in the context of Carnival and music.

The evening before we mounted the display of Carnival costumes, banners and photographs in the Normandie Hotel’s Village Hall conference room.

There were also musical instruments such as Steel Pans and Tassa drums which we placed the next morning. Registration forms were printed and give-away bags placed on the tables, then the students welcomed into the conference room. Dr Pat Bishop gave the welcome address, followed by a few words from the NCC Chairman Mr. Keston Nancoo.

We moved promptly into the day’s agenda, with the first presentation by the Onli brothers, Baba and Modupe from ‘Jewels of Nature”. They began by discussing their instruments, which are all handmade and from natural materials such as wood and seeds. They went on to then play their instruments for the students.

This was followed by Lennox Toussaint, Chairman of Regional Carnival who spoke about the role of other Mas bands outside of Port of Spain. Soon after, Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe played two songs on the Steel Pan for the Jamaican students. He used two double second Steel pans.

Jewels of Nature

The UWI students were then treated to an Interactive demonstration of the Tassa Drum. This was done by Mr. Krishna Soogrimram and his three sons; they are from the Malick T & Tec Tassa Performers. They demonstrated the two main types of ‘drumming Hands’: for weddings and the other for funerals.

Malick T & Tec Tassa Performers

 

Mr. Michael Nobrega from the all-inclusive carnival band Tribe then gave a presentation of their 2007 band Ole Time something come back again. He spoke about the origins of the band as being a section of 100 perople within the Poison Mas band. Tribe later became an independent band of about 20 sections in 2006. It is managed by his three children and son-in law, this year being their second year in carnival as a large band. His 2007 theme looked at recreating a contemporary version of Trinidad’s traditional Mas characters.

Fireman	Dame Lorraine	Fancy Sailor

The feature address was by Mr. Felix Edinborough dressed as the Pierrot Grenade. He did his oral presentation by spelling words in creative and unconventional ways, “As only the Pierrot can do”.

Pierrot Grenade

The next item on the agenda for the UWI Students was a dance performance by the Clico Shiv Shakti Indian dancers. This was followed by students being given a short dance lesson in some of the hand and feet movements by the Indian dancers.

Dancing instructions for the Jamaican UWI students

Road-March winner Sanelle Dempster came on to sing two of her Soca songs for the very excited students. One song was her ‘river’. The students were quite impressed and stood up and danced whilst the Soca artiste performed. Throughout the day students took many photographs. Kerron Riley took the photographs for the Carnival Institute.

Soca artiste Sanelle Dempster performs for the students

This was followed by five traditional carnival characters from the Malick Folk performers. They came into the hall in full costume and did a short parade around the students. This was an opportunity for the students to see another type of carnival costume, as opposed to the Tribe bikinis earlier.

Michael Lucien’s Malick performers

The last performance was by Lord Superior and his band, he sang two calypsos for the students and from her all the performers joined in for a closing finale. The seminar ended on a jubilant note and with lunch. The

Carnival Institute later removed the exhibition.

Mr. Dyette doing a Sailor dance to Lord Superior’s calypso	Lord Superior
CITT Staff	UWI Mona Students
UWI Mona Students applaud	Staff from the UWI Mona campus
Vote of thanks by UWI Mona Student	UWI Mona staff