In the first of what I hope to be a series of interviews,
Massassination will interview some of the movers and shakers in the modern Mas
fraternity to gain some insight on the background of the designers, their creative thought processes and , what
influences their themes, and concepts.
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| Aaron Schneider, setting up the Greed prototype. |
For the first interview, Massassination went to the Maracas
St Joseph Studio (The SEVEN Workshop) of Aaron Schneider the designer of the new
band Generations Carnival that held their media launch on the 6:10:2012 at the
little Carib theatre of their 2013 presentation ‘Lifting of the 7 veils, which
has so far attracted a lot of positive attention and reviews from those who
love mas, both in Trinidad and abroad.
It’s ironic that Aaron in 2007 got a Massassination’s first
‘5 star rating’ for the 2008 band know thyself , while the band did not make it
too the streets of Port of Spain I still say on paper it was a winner and a
classic. Fast forward to 2012 and Aaron Schneider is again producing Mas that
can easily change the balance of whatever category ‘lifting of the 7 veils’ is
entered in.
Mas Assassin: ‘So Aaron, tell me a little about your past’:
Aaron Schneider: “I come from Paramin so I have been bending
wire since I was 6 or 7, so that’s where my carnival involvement began, but my
first real involvement was actually in London in 1997-98 when I worked in the
Oval house theatre (South connections) with Ali Pretty and Ray Mahabir, it was
a lot of batik work, I worked with them for 3 years then I returned home... I
worked with Poison, Wayne Berkley, Trevor Wallace, a little work with Minshall
so I've been in the industry a long time.
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| Sketches of the Wrath Section. |
As a designer the last band I designed was ‘ROME’ the last
Band of the year title that Trini Revellers won, then they made the decision to
go bikini after that me and Wayne Berkley, but that was after his stroke so I
mostly designed Rome...The Drawings are sitting in the National Library with my
signature and I can't even get to see them. After that was Oracle as you know
that did not work out but I remained in the industry doing bead and bikini
stuff, and at the start of this year I
decided this year come poverty or whatever I was not doing it any more ...I was
unfulfilled ...and the universe gave me a chance and the good people at
Veltronics (Veltronics limited authorised
dealer for BOSE) said we like your designs let’s try it out...and that’s
how the lifting of the 7 veils came about.”
M.A: What’s your theme for Carnival 2013?
A.S: "The theme is the
lifting of the 7 veils, an exploration of the 7 deadly sins, I wanted a theme
that reminded you of carnival then, we used to have these basic themes and then
they used to explore it that’s what I wanted to do. I did not want to go to
heavy because I believe people need to be
slowly re introduced to Mas, it has to be a process and this is step one of
that process, using materials that they know, then juxtapose with elements they
may not like wire etc and hopefully they will come. So you find your sin buy the costume wear it
for 2 days and hopefully a cleansing would take place."
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