|
What is carnival?
It is an annual celebration of life found in many
countries of the world. And in fact, by learning more
about carnival we can learn more about ourselves and a lot
about accepting and understanding other cultures.
Where
did the word “carnival” come from?
Hundred and hundreds of years ago, the followers of the
Catholic religion in Italy started the tradition of
holding a wild costume festival right before the first day
of Lent. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat
during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale
— which means “to put away the meat.” As time
passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous; and in
fact the practice spread to France, Spain, and all the
Catholic countries in Europe. Then as the French, Spanish,
and Portuguese began to take control of the Americas and
other parts of the world, they brought with them their
tradition of celebrating carnival.
The dynamic
economic and political history of the Caribbean are indeed
the ingredients of festival arts as we find them today
throughout the African and Caribbean Diaspora. Once
Columbus had steered his boat through Caribbean waters, it
was only a few hundred years before the slave trade was
well established. By the early 19th century, some six
million slaves had been brought to the Caribbean. Between
1836 and 1917, indentured workers from Europe, west and
central Africa, southern China, and India were brought to
the Caribbean as laborers.
African
influences on carnival traditions
Important to Caribbean festival arts are the ancient
African traditions of parading and moving in circles
through villages in costumes and masks. Circling villages
was believed to bring good fortune, to heal problems, and
chill out angry relatives who had died and passed into the
next world. Carnival traditions also borrow from the
African tradition of putting together natural objects
(bones, grasses, beads, shells, fabric) to create a piece
of sculpture, a mask, or costume — with each object or
combination of objects representing a certain idea or
spiritual force.
Feathers
were frequently used by Africans in their motherland on
masks and headdresses as a symbol of our ability as humans
to rise above problems, pains, heartbreaks, illness — to
travel to another world to be reborn and to grow
spiritually. Today, we see feathers used in many, many
forms in creating carnival costumes.
African
dance and music traditions transformed the early carnival
celebrations in the Americas, as African drum rhythms,
large puppets, stick fighters, and stilt dancers began to
make their appearances in the carnival festivities.
In many
parts of the world, where Catholic Europeans set up
colonies and entered into the slave trade, carnival took
root. Brazil, once a Portuguese colony, is famous for its
carnival, as is Mardi Gras in Louisiana (where
African-Americans mixed with French settlers and Native
Americans). Carnival celebrations are now found throughout
the Caribbean in Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada, Dominica,
Haiti, Cuba, St. Thomas, St. Marten; in Central and South
America in Belize, Panama, Brazil; and in large cities in
Canada and the U.S. where Caribbean people have settled,
including Brooklyn, Miami, and Toronto. Even San Francisco
has a carnival!
Carnival
in Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad's carnival is a beautiful example of how carnival
can unite the world. For in this small nation, the beliefs
and traditions of many cultures have come together; and
for a brief five days each year, the whole country forgets
their differences to celebrate life!
Like many
other nations under colonial rule, the history of Native
Americans and African people in Trinidad is a brutal, sad
story. Spain and England at different times both claimed
Trinidad as their colonies. Under British rule, the French
settled in Trinidad, bringing with them their slaves,
customs, and culture. By 1797, 14,000 French settlers came
to live in Trinidad, consisting of about 2,000 whites and
12,000 slaves. Most of the native peoples (often called
the Amerindians) who were the first people to live in
Trinidad, died from forced labor and illness.
Carnival
was introduced to Trinidad around 1785, as the French
settlers began to arrive. The tradition caught on quickly,
and fancy balls were held where the wealthy planters put
on masks, wigs, and beautiful dresses and danced long into
the night. The use of masks had special meaning for the
slaves, because for many African peoples, masking is
widely used in their rituals for the dead. Obviously
banned from the masked balls of the French, the slaves
would hold their own little carnivals in their backyards
— using their own rituals and folklore, but also
imitating their masters’ behavior at the masked balls.
For African
people, carnival became a way to express their power as
individuals, as well as their rich cultural traditions.
After 1838 (when slavery was abolished), the freed
Africans began to host their own carnival celebrations in
the streets that grew more and more elaborate, and soon
became more popular than the balls.
Today,
carnival in Trinidad is like a mirror that reflects the
faces the many immigrants who have come to this island
nation from Europe, Africa, India, and China. African,
Asian, and American Indian influences have been
particularly strong.
Carnival is
such an important aspect of life in Trinidad that many
schools believe that sponsoring a carnival band is a way
to teach young people about their roots and culture. In
Trinidad’s Kiddies Carnival, hundreds of schools and
community organizations participate! In this way,
communities work together to develop stronger friendships
and greater respect for the many cultures that make up
Trinidad.
Creating
a carnival production
In order to put a carnival band together, it takes many
weeks of welding; sewing; gluing; applying feathers,
sequins, foil papers, glitter and lots of creativity,
energy, and patience. The first step is to come up with a
theme or overall concept for the band and to develop
costume illustrations for each section of dancers.
Costumes are then sewn, decorated, and fitted to each
individual dancer. All this creative activity takes place
in what are referred to in the Caribbean as “mas
camps,” where teamwork and organization are crucial to
creating an award-winning production.
The larger
costumes are usually more difficult to design and build.
Huge frames are created by bending wire into shapes, then
covering with paper mâché, foam, and other materials.
Physics play an important role, as the costume must be
able to move and dance across stages and streets, and not
fall apart! Many different forms of decorations and
materials (natural and man-made) are used to transform the
costume into a dream of the mind’s eye. The Praying
Mantis pictured here was created by Ronald Blaize
(from Marabella, Trinidad), who also created All Ah We’s
Sun Fire King in 1992. Created primarily
from wire, netting, foam, and paint, these awesome
costumes mesmerize and dazzle spectators.
One of the
most incredible artists working today in Trinidad is Peter
Minshall. He is acclaimed internationally as the foremost
artist working in the field of “dancing mobiles,” a
form of performance art that combines the
three-dimensional quality of large-scale sculpture with
the dramatic and choreographic expressiveness of a live
human performer. As Minshall has noted, “The dancing
mobile is one of many forms to grow out of the masquerade
tradition of Trinidad Carnival.”
The
Birth of the Steelband
One of the exciting aspects of Caribbean carnival is the
appearance in the early 20th century of the steel pan,
which are instruments made from used oil drums that have
been cut off on one end and then shaped, pounded, and
tuned. Every carnival season, steelbands, composed of one
to two hundred pan players, practice for months on end.
Ready with their tunes, these steelbands take to the
stadiums and the streets, to create some of the most
beautiful music in the world.
The history
of the steelband in Trinidad and Tobago is directly tied
to the banning of all types of drumming in Trinidad in the
1880’s. Though this ban was not readily accepted and
rioting resulted, ultimately Africans applied and
readapted their tradition of the drum to create new forms
and mediums of music, including the tamboo
bamboo, a rhythmic ensemble made up of bamboo joints
beaten together and pounded on the ground. Biscuit tins
and dustbins were manipulated and crafted into
instruments, becoming the first “pans.” To explore the
roots of pan and understand that this phenomenal music
came about through years of struggle and sacrifice, visit
Steelbands of Trinidad and Tobago.
Uniting
the World
Carnival arts offers all of us a dynamic tool for
self-expression and exploration, a tool to seek out our
roots, a tool to develop new forms of looking at the world
and its cultures, and finally, a tool to unite the world,
to discover what we all have in common, and to celebrate
what makes us different. The power and creativity that
underlies these art forms can transform lives. Join hands
with All Ah We, and together we will dance the song of
life!
Recommended
Reading
Caribbean Festival Arts, written by John W.
Nunley and Judith Bettleheim (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1988 |
