Woi ! Mas Ltd, the people who brought arguably one of the most anticipated
and original concepts last year with the celebrated 'SKULLDUGGERY' designed by Sonya Sanchez Arias, have started their Carnival 2012 campaign on facebook with the letter 'X'.
In a conversation with Peter Samuel yesterday he promised that once again this production will be 'out of the box', and based on the evidence on FB it is possible that the 2012 designs may feature the works of Artist Daren Cheewah, whose FB profile features this design below, could this be a peek into Woi! Mas 2012?
Six time Calypso Monarch Leroy Calliste ‘The Black Stalin’ went to the Skullduggery mas camp and composed this catchy song for the band . I loved the tune so much it inspired me to do this little clip.
The Costumes were designed by Sonya Sanchez-Arias
and original photography by Mark Lyndersay
Mas Assassin.
I like many others around the world stayed up to watch the first launch of Carnival 2k11 Skullduggery. I for one was not disappointed. A lot of post launch post mortems have resulted with different conclusions, some liked it some loved it, others hated it. Yet others thought it was complete and others incomplete.
I think skulduggery is a triumph, while critics call it a jouvay band, ole mas, cheap looking, etc what they all fail to realise is that, this is what Peter Samuel and Co wanted , this band is a fun band in the truest sense of the term, the fun bands of the bikini and beads stopped being fun a long time ago. Their fun with all the razzle dazzale of marketing photoshop and now promises of ‘intimate experiences’ has the 21st century masquerader so far removed from the spirit of carnival, MAS and FUN that they will not recognise fun MAS, it if it fell from heaven with a sign saying ‘I am mas’ in neon lights.
For the weeks preceding the launch there has been articles in the Trinidad press and on the net, there have been interviews and articles on the designer, band leader and theme of the band, hinting what the band will be all about, yet many of us seemed to miss the clues .
The Promo for the launch voiced by Peter Minshall just about summarised the entire band he called it “mas resurrection, after false alarm” who can remember the theme of 2010’s band of the year?
And if you, do what was resurrected?
Carnival traditions.
Two Face.
“Mas with wit, mas with mind, just like long ago...” before the ‘bacchanal elite’ led by the middle class, took over carnival, mas was much more, than the bling and vanity of today, it was a social expression, like calypso mas too commented on and ridiculed through satire the society of the time, this was not mas to a formula, this was creative expression through high thought and social observation. Skullduggery is a mas in this creative stream, it is filled with symbolism not in just the names of the section, but the mas itself, a practice long lost to the ‘bacchanal elite’ if in fact they ever knew it.
‘Bacchanal elite’ is a phrase created by the author Earl Lovelace who states in the essay ‘In the Voice of the people’ “What we have arrived at then is an elite that I call the bacchanal elite, an elite that is familiar with the region in a way which the colonial elite was not, but has no culture beyond entertainment to fight for or to advance and that can only have money as its god.”
Skullduggery then, with its reference to local dialect and social symbolism, is a mas of the wider society, those that have to read the papers and witness the effects of the social skullduggery on a day to day basis, and those who live it too. The grass roots people who suffer the violence of present day baajohns, those who know the local macco’s , who lose out because of corruption and grease hand. It those who live this life that invent the jargons and produce the culture. It is they who understand and value the beauty in what is ours, the beauty in we, the ‘bacchanal aesthetics’ Skulduggery is their mas.
In a carnival today where themes don’t exist and fantasy plumes and glass stones, reflect the pretty but cold reality of societies soul, Skullduggery to the ignorant eye is almost an ‘anti mas’. while bands today are designed by as many contributors as there are sections all seriously competing against each other under one banner in the name of ‘fun’. Skullduggery is designed by one designer looking at society and what it has become, satirising reality in a colourful parlance that we know.
Look at Mamaguy, now Mamaguy is classical satire, this is literally a mockery of the ‘serious fun mas’ of today, like the Dame Lorine of the 18th century , Mamaguy pokes fun at the bacchanal elite who mamaguy their masqueraders every year with the fantasy of beauty excess and stupid expense.
Baajohn is simply an exercise in social commentary, gun barrel and knuckle duster t- shirts barbed wire skirts, cowboy hats and bullet belts, Badjohn without doubt reflects the insane levels of badness that permeates today’s societies all over the world. BaaJohns no longer carry white handle razors but are almost urban solders in the front lines of urban war zones this is contemporary mas at its most visual. Skullduggery is without a doubt a mas with its fingers on the pulse of contemporary society, and with the trappings of plastic chains, recycled plastic bottles, and handmade paper accessories this mas not only pays tribute to the creative traditions of Trinidad Carnival, but reflects a supreme confidence in the made in Trinidad brand, and in so doing becomes a polar opposite to the themeless mamaguy of the bacchanal elite, for whom nothing made in Trinidad seems worth celebrating.
Peter Samuel.
Sonya Sanchez Arias.
Peter Samuel and Sonya Sanchez Arias in their first outing together in Carnival, have boldly taken on a challenge that no band, serious, fun, or otherwise has dared to take on in the past 10 years (except Minshall in 06). That is to address the state of the society through the art of the society in a voice that is our own a tribute that the bacchanal elite does not care to pay or wont dare to pay because... lets be honest they can’t.
Socucouyant.
So to those who think the mas needs tweaking, pants too long, to much going on ...look again , look at the mas not through the fog of fantasy but the lucidity of reality, look with the eyes of a calypso, look for the message, the signs and symbols in the transcript, and if it still look off key look at the society...it look on key to you?
When you hear Peter Minshall saw the designs and gave the the thumbs up, you know its a mas with a difference, when you hear Minshall's voice promoting and endorsing the band you know that mas will be wicked!
04:07:2010 where will you be?
Everything in photography comes down to one word. Vision. And, if photography means the relative difference between light and dark areas of a print or negative, how do things look in this picture? Sonya Sanchez Arias. Mas Band designer. Skullduggery. Artisans in Port of Spain and Florida who are aware of her work won’t fret at all. Sanchez Arias’ profession could be construed as designer with a camera, but the Trinidadian-born Florida resident’s trademarked logo is really that of an illustrious artist, period. Sanchez Arias’ advantage is capturing the weight of the moment, and nowhere in time has the freshest breath of air surfaced until now. This very instant.
For years, Carnival through her lens has been a one-note beat in the Land of Calypso. And a tone sustained can be screechy to the senses, particularly vision. Sanchez Arias is all about imagery, for sure. She says there’s not enough innovation in the mas.“Everything looks exactly the same year after year. Brian Mac Farlane is the only one designing costumes with lots of cloth. But it’s not enough. There should be more variety. Masqueraders should have more choice.” But, Sanchez Arias no longer needs to vent. Last summer, Peter Samuel, the King player who won the national title eight times, reached her by phone about the potential in her work, vis-Ã -vis the “incredible” paper dresses she had designed for a Florida company. His curiosity piqued, he wondered if she was up to the task of designing a mas band, though he was well aware that her mother Judith (Miss Judy) Sanchez had played a pivotal role at the Callaloo Company’s mas camp, working on a costume for his queen, for example, or producing elements of various sections in his bands.
Judy Sanchez
According to Sanchez Arias, “Peter Minshall really valued my mother’s opinion and sense of design.” So, Sanchez Arias recalls jumping at Samuel’s offer “without hesitation.” Miss Judy – everybody used the moniker for her creative mom, who passed away several years ago – would be proud, she mused. Particularly about the strange passing of the genes. Suddenly, the baton was in Sanchez Arias’ hand, but, with 2011 Carnival around the corner, the competition had a head start. Husband Fernando, himself a photographer,will tell you, though, pressure is no stranger to both him and his wife. Remember the genes? Miss Judy conceived her daughter in Spain, where she had met her husband, Baltazar Sanchez, an ultimate sportsman who not only fought in the bullring but also on the court at Wimbledon. Sanchez Arias is the third of four children. Both an older sister, Lydia, and her brother, Saro who died at age 14, were born in Spain, where Miss Judy thrilled audiences with her flamenco dances. In August 1964, the budding family relocated to Trinidad, where Sanchez Arias and her younger brother Jose were born. Baltazar adapted to his new country and fell in as a tennis coach. Meanwhile, Miss Judy crafted bridal headpieces and wedding decorations. Mas would come into focus a few years down the road.
Sanchez Arias’ earliest memory of mas places her as a toddler behind a gate on Western Main Road opposite the St James Police Barracks, gaping at the traditional Carnival characters that roamed the neighborhood in the early morning before they set out for the city. That baptism led to her playing mas as early as six years old in Kiddies Carnival competitions around the country, including the Southland. The progression took her through Jouvert . Much later, after graduating with honors in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, Miss Judy’s daughter repurposed her creativity, albeit briefly, as a Minshall mas player.
And now, she’s the one working her fingers to the bone, a novice mas woman designing a band by following the fashion of skulduggery in her homeland. Her own idea being transformed into what many Trinbagonians may consider as a vernacular, but indeed one that finds meaning in Webster’s: Skulduggery—unfair and dishonest practices carried out in a secretive way in order to trick other people; devious or mischievous activity; verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way. Or, as Don King, the flamboyant boxing promoter—who ruled in the Muhammad Ali era—used to say, “trickerations.”
“It’s a universal fact that people are enthralled by skulls and skeletons,” says Sanchez Arias from her office she calls the bone yard. “And I married that to the underhanded nonsense going on in Trinidad and Tobago. Bribery, trickery, dishonesty, slyness, deceit. All de bobol, comesse and grease han’ skulduggery.” Such qualities of—as they say on the block—skull, play out in all of her sections, so they could “trickerate” spectators, Sanchez Arias warns. “I injected a humorous slant,” she says. “Mas is about that, too. Like mockery in the Kaiso Tent and ole mas. Trinidadians are accustomed to using humour to express themselves creatively. “When I read the definition, I said, ‘We have so much of that here in T&T, so many possibilities to interpret skulduggery practices into local parlance.’ “So, with certain sections, I’m very literal.”
To the bone, naturally. And far be it from Sanchez Arias to varnish quotations on her Web site. Her favourite flows e flows from photographer Ansel Adams: We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium. We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium. “I believe this to be true of Carnival, too,” she says. No wonder Sonya Sanchez Arias’ business is about transparencies. Look into it at the July 4 launch of the band. “Skullduggery.” Though the band spells the word differently, it says mockingly, ‘We’re not hard to find at all.’
Sonya Sanchez-Arias is the designer of the band SKULLDUGGERY. Mark Lyndersay has done a fantastic interview with her, if you want to know more about this creative force and her background the interview is on the Zeppie page of the SKULLDUGGERY web site.
Sonya Sanchez-Arias is a photographer and stylist well known and regarded for her work in Trinidad and Tobago when she ran her studio here in the 1990's. Since returning to Florida with her husband, a move spurred by her wish to ride the first wave of the digital revolution, she has become a specialist stylist working with her husband, Fernando.
Skullduggery is her first Carnival band and this interview, transcribed from a Skype interview on May 18, 2010, explains her thoughts, background and inspirations for the work she is doing on the project.
Please note that the photography accompanying this story was created for a very different project. While it reflects the quality of the designer's work and her capabilities, it reflects a different challenge and approach to the work she's doing for the Skullduggery project.
.JPG)
.jpg)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1d115a09-9af9-4942-9fe0-b41d6e2d4625)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b9ed96f1-b517-4454-a293-6ae301ee35a0)
Posts
