 | This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.(May 2017) |
Peter Minshall (born 16 July 1941) is a Trinidadian Carnival artist (described colloquially in Trinidad and Tobago as a "mas-man").
Minshall was born in Georgetown, Guyana on July 16, 1941, [1] but moved to Trinidad as a small child after his father took a job as a cartoonist. Growing up in the capital, Port of Spain, Minshall was exposed to Carnival from a young age. He made his first costume at the age of 13. He attended Queen's Royal College, then went on to study Theatre Design at the Central School of Art and Design in London.
Peter Minshall designed Carnival costumes for various relatives and family friends, even before he left school. At art school, he wrote a thesis on the bat (a traditional Carnival character) and his first major theatrical commission, for a production at Sadler's Wells, came after a director saw a portfolio of his Carnival designs.
When Minshall's mother asked him to create a costume for his adopted sister Sherry-Ann Guy (Coelho) to wear for carnival 1974, it was the pivotal event in Minshall's Carnival career. The costume he created was called "From the Land of the Hummingbird". [2] According to him, it took five weeks, 12 people, 104 feathers, each one made of 150 different pieces of fabric. The costume was designed to allow its wearer total mobility and was an immediate sensation. It also became a major icon of Trinidad Carnival.
The following year, Minshall designed a band for London's Notting Hill Carnival, and in 1976 he was asked by veteran bandleaders Stephen and Elsie Lee Heung to design a full-size band for Trinidad Carnival. Minshall chose the theme Paradise Lost, which was inspired by Milton's epic poem. The band was conceived in four "movements", like a symphony, and introduced a form of winged costume based on Minshall's study of traditional Carnival characters, which he would continue to develop over the course of his career. As Paradise Lost paraded through the streets of the city, a grand narrative unfolded, astounding onlookers. One observer, the photographer Roy Boyke, remarked: "It is doubtful that the work of any single individual has had so searing an impact on the consciousness of an entire country."
Paradise Lost was followed by the bands Zodiac (1978), Carnival of the Sea (1979), Dance Macabre (1980), and Jungle Fever (1981). Papillon (1982), which consisted of 2,500 masqueraders wearing ten-foot butterfly wings in a huge meditation on the ephemeral nature of life, was another Minshall landmark. River (1983) began the trilogy of bands that many consider Minshall's magnum opus. The queen of the band, "Washerwoman", represented life and purity; the king, "Mancrab", was a symbol of greed and technological madness. In Minshall's narrative, these two characters battled over the souls of the River People, portrayed by the band's ordinary masqueraders. On Carnival Monday the River People danced in the streets dressed in white cotton, like a stream of purity, under a rippling white canopy three-quarters of a mile long. On Carnival Tuesday, "Mancrab" triumphed over "Washerwoman"; as her lifeless body was carried away, the River People doused each other with paint of many colours in a ritual of pollution, until the once-pristine masqueraders were a uniform muddy purple. The River trilogy continued in 1984 with Callaloo and concluded in 1985 with The Golden Calabash, in which two full-size bands, Princes of Darkness and Lords of Light, clashed in an epic symbolic battle between good and evil. A series of pessimistic bands followed in the late 1980s: Rat Race (1987), Jumbie (1988), and Sans Humanité (1989), before Minshall conjured up a dream of joy and harmony in Tantana (1990). The queen and king of the band, "Tan Tan" and "Saga Boy", are among Minshall's most popular creations, giant puppets that danced with lifelike mannerisms in the streets. Minshall's began his second trilogy in 1995 with a band he called Hallelujah, and continued with Song of the Earth (1996) and Tapestry (1997). The entire cycle was an immense, baroque, overtly theological praise-song, referring to creation myths and religious images. Depressed by the growing commercialism of Carnival and the decline of the traditions his work had always drawn on, Minshall produced a series of sardonic bands in the late 1990s and early 2000s-- The Lost Tribe (1999), This Is Hell (2001), Ship of Fools (2003)--relieved only by his joyful Picoplat (2002), a band of colourful dancing birds. He produced no bands in 2004 and 2005, but in 2006 Minshall returned to Carnival with The Sacred Heart, an army of "urban samurai cowboys and -girls" marching against hate, selfishness, disease, and prejudice. The band was partly sponsored by the National AIDS Coordinating Committee of Trinidad and Tobago and had an explicit HIV/AIDS awareness message.
Minshall's costumes have sometimes been called "dancing mobiles." "Mas" as he conceives it is performance art that combines the qualities of sculpture with those of movement. Each costume is designed with the motion of the performer in mind, so that performer and costume are one. "I provide the means for the human body to express its energy," he says. His bands are never merely costumed parades, but exercises in total theatre, using music, drama, dance, and visual spectacle to communicate a metaphor-rich narrative.
His 1987 band Carnival is Colour was a sarcastic response to criticisms that his work was not reflective of Carnival. Another characteristic of Minshall's work is his focus on social or philosophical issues. His work is also controversial at times; his 1995 band Hallelujah resulted in a petition by 208 Pentecostal pastors who deemed the name blasphemous. However, Minshall refused to change the name.
Minshall claims that mas—"living art that we make fresh every year"—is the truest artistic expression of Trinidad. "Our aesthetic is performance, the living now." A major aim of his life's work has been to prove that mas can be "high" art, as capable of the sublime or the universal as any other artform.
In addition to designing mas, Minshall has worked on a variety of performance projects. In 1985, he led Adoration of Hiroshima, a nuclear protest mas', in Washington, D.C. He helped design the opening ceremonies for the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis, the Barcelona 1992 Summer Olympics, the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, the 1994 Football World Cup and the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics. He also collaborated with Jean Michel Jarre, once in 1990 on Paris la Defense, and again in 1995 on the Concert For Tolerance. Minshall's creations have also been on display and took place at the opening ceremony of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007. He is also credited as the inventor of the Air dancer.
The music of Trinidad and Tobago is best known for its calypso music, soca music, chutney music, and steelpan. Calypso's internationally noted performances in the 1950s from native artists such as Lord Melody, Lord Kitchener and Mighty Sparrow. The art form was most popularised at that time by Harry Belafonte. Along with folk songs and African- and Indian-based classical forms, cross-cultural interactions have produced other indigenous forms of music including soca, rapso, parang, chutney, and other derivative and fusion styles. There are also local communities which practice and experiment with international classical and pop music, often fusing them with local steelpan instruments.
The music of Dominica includes a variety of genres including all the popular genres of the world. Popular music is widespread, with a number of native Dominican performers gaining national fame in imported genres such as calypso, reggae, soca, kompa, zouk and rock and roll. Dominica's own popular music industry has created a form called bouyon, which combines elements from several styles and has achieved a wide fanbase in Dominica. Groups include WCK, Native musicians in various forms, such as reggae, kadans (Ophelia Marie, and calypso, have also become stars at home and abroad.
J'ouvert or Jour ouvert is a traditional festival known as "break day" or the unofficial start of Carnival, which takes place on the Monday before Ash Wednesday. The festival, with origins in Trinidad, traditionally begins at 2 a.m. and continues until mid-morning on Monday. J'Ouvert revellers cover their bodies in coloured paints, mud, pitch oil, dress as blue or red devils to dance the streets as an expression of liberation from the constraints of the past and in celebration of the ancestors who have gone before them. Other neighbouring islands, and in areas where Caribbean people have immigrated, celebrate J'ouvert before the official start of Carnival Mas, where the more elaborate costumes are on display and danced through the city streets.
The Toronto Caribbean Carnival, formerly and affectionately known as Caribana, is a festival of Caribbean culture and traditions held each summer in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a pan-Caribbean Carnival event and has been billed as North America's largest Festival, frequented by over 1.3 million tourists each year for the festival's Grand Parade and an overall attendance of 2.3 million.
The Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is an annual event held on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday in Trinidad and Tobago. This event is well known for participants' colorful costumes and exuberant celebrations. There are numerous cultural events such as "band launch fetes" running in the lead up to the street parade on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. It is said that if the islanders are not celebrating it, then they are preparing for it, while reminiscing about the past year's festival. Traditionally, the festival is associated with calypso music, with its origins formulated in the midst of hardship for enslaved West and Central Africans; however, recently Soca music has replaced calypso as the most celebrated type of music. Costumes, stick-fighting and limbo competitions are also important components of the festival.
The Burrokeet is a "donkey-man" character traditionally portrayed in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. The name derives from the Spanish word burroquito, the character's costume being constructed so as to give the illusion of a dancer riding a small burro or donkey. This masquerade was brought to Trinidad by Venezuelan settlers.
The Canboulay riots were a series of disturbances in the British colony of Trinidad in 1881. The riots came about in response to efforts by the colonial police to restrict aspects of the island's annual Carnival festival. In Port of Spain, San Fernando and Princes Town, angered Trinidadians rioted in response to the actions of the police; several people were killed as a result of the riots. Canboulay music forms an important part the musical traditions of Trinidad. The "chantwell" or chantuelle who was also an integral part of the celebrations was the forerunner of the calypsonian and later soca music.
The culture of Trinidad and Tobago reflects the influence of Indian-South Asian, African, Indigenous, European, Chinese, North American, Latino, and Arab cultures. The histories of Trinidad and Tobago are different. There are differences in the cultural influences which have shaped each island. Trinidad and Tobago is an English-speaking country with strong links to the United Kingdom.
The culture of Dominica is formed by the inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Dominica. Dominica is home to a wide range of people. Although it was historically occupied by several native tribes, it was the Taíno and Island Caribs (Kalinago) tribes that remained by the time European settlers reached the island. "Massacre" is a name of a river dedicated to the murders of the native villagers by both French and British settlers, because the river "ran red with blood for days." Each claimed the island and imported slaves from Africa. The remaining Caribs now live on a 3,700-acre (15 km2) Carib Territory on the east coast of the island. They elect their own chief.
The Antiguan Carnival is a celebration of the emancipation of slavery in the country held annually from the end of July to the first Tuesday in August. The most important day is that of the j'ouvert, in which brass and steel bands perform for much of the island's population. Barbuda's Carnival, held in June, is known as Caribana. The Antiguan and Barbudan Carnivals replaced the Old Time Christmas Festival in 1957, with hopes of inspiring tourism in Antigua and Barbuda. Some elements of the Christmas Festival remain in the modern Carnival celebrations.
Batabano is the name of the Caribbean Carnival held in the Cayman Islands. The festival takes place annually during the first week of May in George Town. Batabano is a time for people of all different descents to gather with a common interest and celebrate community spirit. The Cayman Islands are home to over 100 different nationalities, all brought together and embraced by the festival. It is a cultural celebration filled with music, dance, and elaborate costumes that reflect the landscapes, heritage, and culture. International interest is growing in the Batabano celebrations, despite only having existed for about 30 years.
As an overseas department of France, Martinique's culture is French and Caribbean. Its former capital, Saint-Pierre, was often referred to as the Paris of the Lesser Antilles. The official language is French, although many Martinicans speak a Creole patois. Based in French, Martinique's Creole also incorporates elements of English, Spanish, Portuguese, and African languages. Originally passed down through oral storytelling traditions, it continues to be used more often in speech than in writing.
Chanté mas and Lapo kabrit is a form of Carnival music of Dominica. It is performed by masquerading partygoers in a two-day parade, with a lead vocalist (chantwèl), who is followed by the responsorial chorus (lavwa), with drummers and dancers dancing backwards in front of the drummer on a tambou lélé. The Carnival has African and French roots and is otherwise known as Mas Dominik, the most original Carnival in the Caribbean.
Michael Curry is an American production designer who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is also the owner and President of Michael Curry Design Inc. in Scappoose, Oregon, which was started in 1986.
Brian Mac Farlane is a Trinidadian Carnival artist, known as a "Mas' Man" in Trinidad and Tobago.
Cariwest is an annual non-profit three-day Caribbean Arts Festival that takes place annually in the second weekend of August in the heart of downtown Edmonton, Alberta. Cariwest and its surrounding events attract more than 60,000 people each year. The festival gives the attendees a chance to enjoy Caribbean culture.
Leslie Stephen "Teacher" Palmer,, is a Trinidadian community activist, writer and teacher, who migrated in the 1960s to the UK, where he became involved in music and the arts in West London. He is credited with developing a successful template for the Notting Hill Carnival, of which he was director from 1973 to 1975, during which time he "completely revolutionised the event and transformed its structure and content almost beyond recognition." He is also known by the name of "The Wounded Soldier" as a kaisonian.
Yao Ramesar is a Trinidadian and Tobagonian film director and screenwriter.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
