#sexypink/mas making

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Sexypink - From the Facebook page of Colin Gill. Fibreglass, wire, bamboo and pure unadulterated passion.

Stage costume photographed by Anthony Keung Fatt 

From the Facebook page of Antourage Production

KING :     JOSEPH  LEWISPORTRAYAL:   UDEVELI OLUHLAZA - THE HAUNTED JAB OF CANBOULAYCATEGORY:     FANTASYBAND:     ANTOURAGE PRODUCTIONSDESIGNER:     VARMA LEO LAKHANBAND LEADER:     SHELDON LEWISBUILT BY : COLIN GILL, SHELDON LEWIS, JOSEPH LEWIS, LEO LAKHAN AIR BRUSHED BY: RONALD RAMDINBorn from the tears of slavery, from eyes reddened and ready to seek revenge, he appears - summoned by the cries and rhythm of a nation. Seeking justice and payment for the enslavement of his people, he charges forth with a rage like the flames of cannes brulee. Although the haunted Jab is feared by many, he is most certainly and rightfully respected from all. The drums start to beat, the horn start to… It is time to celebrate freedom. Our freedom! The freedom of the people in Trinidad and Tobago. The spirit of the Jab is all around us. Give your dues to the devil or suffer his wrath for there is no other way to quell his vengeance. "Pay the devil JAB JAB" ... or pray he has mercy on your soul.This magnificent Creation was designed by Varma Leo Lakhan and Built by Colin Gill, Sheldon Lewis and Varma Lakhan. Colors used are Blue, Red and Gold.  Carried on three wheels, the costume stands at a height of 35ft, width of  30ft and a length of 20ftq. Materials used on this Dynamic Costume are fiber glass, aluminum rods, cane, wire, sequins, fabric, foam, metallic foil and plastic Molding. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Joseph Lewis back to defend his title as the King of Carnival with his portrayal of "Udeveli Oluhlaza" - the Haunted Jab of Canboula

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UGvw9M2CY04

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Sexypink -

As yuh make yuh bed..

So you go lie dong on it.

One of the words of wisdom passed on intergenerationally in the Afro- French Creole culture. Young girls were instructed by wiser family members of harm it would bring to them when unheeded.

The bed with its trimmings were sacrosanct. It was a metaphor for la vie en rose and to interfere with the elaborate rules would cause damnation to the unwary.

Those who did not obey would experience pure misery. Nonetheless.some enjoyed the bedroom regardless and pursued the lifestyle....some when becoming pregnant would become the Baby Doll...those who did not conceive would be called the derogatory name of MATTRESS.

Indeed, it was literally how a young girl made her bed that she would lie in it for her future life.

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Sexypink - Rubadiri Victor captured some excellent behind the scenes images of The Making Of Carnival KINGS & QUEENS. I think that there is a picture book in the making here.

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Sexypink. - Jackie Hinkson makes the ‘bess’ mas.

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Sexypink -

NEW Call for Submissions!

Come SAIL with us for Carnival 2024!

The Rotunda Gallery welcomes submissions that showcase one or more of the Sailor Mas costumes. The pieces can also highlight the history and evolution of this particular Carnival character and also the making of the costume or even just favourite sailor mas character!

For more information, click on the link below!

https://www.ttparliament.org/.../2024/01/CFS-Sailor-Mas.pdf

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SEXYPINK - Trinidad and Tobago Photographer Abigail Hadeed’s recollections of her photoshoot with Black Stalin. Her curiosity and genuine desire to capture her own culture produced these stunning portraits.

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Abigail Hadeed on Photographing the Stars

“We Can Make it IF We Try” In the Mid 80’s I started photographing traditional mas and the steel bands in and around Port of Spain. I was young, in my early 20’s with a passion and desire to learn and explore Trinidad and it’s culture. 

On my own I began to explore South East POS, Laventille, Belmont and the panyards the traditional mas camps, Minshall, you name it I did it.  

 followed my instinct and allowed things to unfold. At the time I did not have a plan and or know that 3 decades would just fly by and along the way I had and have worked with the Regions best and greatest. I have much to be thankful for, being born at the time i have, the people who let me in, and the spaces and people that fed my soul.

 The Black Stalin was definitely one of those memorable shoots at the studio on Long Circular Road.  Black Stalin circa 1991

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Sexypink - Makeda Thomas

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PERFORMING TODAY in Chicago! “Is/Not Mas” is an invitation to engage the serious work of play that is at the center of mas and Carnival performance. Archival audio and video, fractal algorithms, sound, and movement collect to experiment with a possibility of performance rooted in and that invokes aesthetics of mas and Carnival, but is yet something else altogether. Kalinda, kinetics, Traditional mas, and Jouvay are called on to gesture towards what we mean when we say, “Mas!

Ah know yuh!”via

Performance Studies at Northwestern University

: Introducing the Graduate Student Spotlight Series, in this series we will be sharing more about the graduate student community that make up Northwestern’s Department of Performance Studies, as well as their work and practice. Ahead of the graduate performances, a key milestone for our graduate students, we will be kicking off the series with our first-year PhD students. Makeda Thomas (she/her) 

Makeda Thomas‘ artistic practice, scholarship and teaching situate at the intersection of dance studies, diaspora theory, and Black feminisms. She is Founding Director of the Trinidad-based Dance & Performance Institute, which has created multiple spaces of intellectual and imaginative inquiry for hundreds of artists, scholars, teachers, and students of the Caribbean and its Diasporas. The Institute spearheads the Artist in Residence Program, New Waves! Institute, and Carnival Performance Institute - programs which have been engaged in Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti, and New York. A 2013 Creative Capital Awardee, her choreography has been presented internationally including at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Live Arts, HARLEM Stage/Aaron Davis Hall, Seattle’s Broadway Performance Hall, Maputo’s Teatro Africa, Port of Spain’s Caribbean Contemporary Arts and Queen’s Hall, The National Gallery of Art and 7 Arts Centre in Zimbabwe, Teatro de la Ciudad in Mexico, and in the context of Carnival. · 

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Sexypink - CARNIcycle project that I am all for.

Do you have boxes of old costumes that you can no longer use? ⁠ What about costumes you can't take home after the road? ⁠Well shake off the dust off those boxes, and keep your costume after the Stage,  because you can now recycle them with us Make YOUR green impact today, in a super easy way. 

This carnival, choose to reduce your footprint and recycle your costume with us. You can "Fete Play Mas, Bubble and Wine, and Save the Earth, Same Time.  ⁠Trinidad and Tobago ! Carnicycle will be collecting costumes at the SOCADROME AND SAVANNAH on Carnival Tuesday. 

If you can't stop by there, drop off your costume pieces at the following locations!  Costume pieces will be stripped down, sanitized. The bras will be given to local women's charity, Barters for Babies. And if you are an upcoming designer, please lookout for our beads, rhinestones and metal frame give aways for your prototyping needs. ⁠Sustaining our mas, our island and our future starts with you! #EcoMasMovementInitiative by Carnicycle

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Sexypink - A page from the style guide. Amanda T McIntyre looks at the Baby Doll anew.

The Making Dolly Mas Carnival Arts Workshops started two weeks ago and my heart is full. There is so much precious talent among the students. At the end of one session, a girl said, “I want to be a contemporary Baby Doll.” Imagine my pride! This is a term I introduced to the vernacular through reflective essays and lectures. The girls have been writings speeches, building costumes, and choreographing. Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is in good hands. Thanks to the teachers and parents who have been facilitating this dream of mine!

Photographer: Robert Schittko

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~Sexypink~ PANTHEON - on now in Port-Of-Spain.

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~Sexypink~ I just saw this from Tracey, perhaps you might still get an opportunity to hear her interview.

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We're doing it again!

A repeat of our Wire Bending Workshop is on again this Saturday! If you missed it the last time around... this is another opportunity for you to be a part of our Wire Bending Workshop Cost is $225 and it takes place right in our space at Newbold Street from 10 am to 1 pm. Call us today at 622-4125 to reserve your space. Or you can come in to register Tuesdays to Fridays from 11 am to 6 pm.

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~Sexypink~ Blue Devil questions.

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Sexypink Archives

Mas in Yuh Mas  Adele Todd on February 4, 2008

During the Carnival season you find yourself less interested in what is going on anywhere in the world, and on carnival Sunday, the Dimache Gras show makes that fact acutely clear. I have had a standing joke for years about this unwieldy show that can go into the wee hours of Carnival Monday. I always fall asleep when the Mighty Chalkdust is singing and wake up when he’s singing his second song! It is that long! Although in the last year, calypsonians are now singing only one song. But the show is still interminably long.

That aside, I was so very pleasantly surprised to see a great deal of air brushing and hand painted work in the costumes of the Kings and Queens of carnival. I am still a bit dismayed by the way costumes ‘ are made and look. I find that most costumes have a deja vu quality about them that rankles. Also, I imagine that if someone was asked to draw lots with costumes names on them, tripped and fell and then hurriedly handed the names to the announcers, it wouldn’t matter what the costume was. They all seem interchangeable. They are always, Jewelled this, and Goddess that.

Peter Minshall’s long shadow is still cast along the savannah stage as poor interpretations of his mas come forth. Don’t get me wrong, just like our soca music; it takes a great deal to make what we see. It is just that a lot of it seems more for the tourist than for us, who support it. So imagine my complete delight and joy to see Kurt Allen tonight at the Dimache Gras show, singing a song about Bad Johns in Calypso and choosing to act the part by dressing in the suit of the past and including a wonderful tableaux vivant where his characters came to life and sang the chorus. He won’t win of course, the judges wouldn’t let him. Yet I was so pleased that I have to state here that Mr. Allen has finally raised the bar of performance on Lundi morning!

Thank God! At last, someone has broken the Super Blue curse of everyone and their cousin bringing props and half finished costumes and signage onto the stage to help with the ‘conscious lyrics.”

Mr. Allen was able to paint an image of the past so successfully in word, music and visual representation to such a degree that I am actually going to try to stay awake long enough to look at the whole show, god willing in 2009.

With the Kings and Queens of Carnival, the inclusion of art in the mas is not new, but this year I wanted to comment on it a bit, as I have not done so before.

Our Carnival presents many challenges to the people who design and make the mas. Drawing does not always work. Nor does the use of dimensional masks and worst of all, maniquins. Puppets fare better because they are what they set out to be. With the inclusion of pyrotechniques, the mas finds itself beholden to special effects that become neither special nor effective. I am concerned about the way our kings and queens are looking today. I wonder whether I should just get used to them as one gets used to traditional mas? Chalk them up to classical forms? Am I being too critical? After all, these things are done with a lot of serious thought and preparation. One band leader and costume maker had to defend his use of a costume that he resurrected from carnival 2007 and added to! It can’t be easy to face the stage with a brand new concept every year.

How much history and fantasy can you portray successfully and refreshingly different every time? Here is my suggestion. Band leaders and mas makers, look at images of our mas history. Look at mas from everywhere in the world and ask yourself, what can I do differently in this twenty-first century with the materials before me? Does the mas really have to look like you are pulling a big jewelled refrigerator behind you? Can’t it be elegant and beautiful at the same time? Can it be impactful without costing thirty to sixty thousand dollars? I must close though by saying that I do not want to give the impression that I hate everything I see on the Dimache Gras stage. On the contrary. I am a huge fan of the traditional Indian mas characters, and some of the African mas characters as well. I love aspects of the fantasy mas and the colour combinations of many of the Kings and Queens. In short, what I am trying to get across is that our mas people must learn and be inspired by the very best and continue to evolve the mas, or else we shall end up looking like mas anywhere else, and that would be tragic indeed.