By Corey Gilkes
March 04, 2013 – trinicenter.com

I had planned to make my first contribution for 2013 to be on the series of important film documentaries on Trinidad Carnival put on by the TT Film Festival, not least of which were the two on Minshall and the presentation given by Ray Funk. Some were poorly attended but they were all priceless in the way each of them opened a little more of that portal on ourselves more of us need to see. Minsh used the streets as his canvass to express his philosophy in the traditions of Bailey, Saldenah and the legions of largely (tragically) nameless persons who used the Midnight Robber, the Minstrel, the Baby Doll, the Dame Lorraine, the Burrokeet, the Jab Molassie to hold up the mirror of society and all its hypocrisy and excesses to show us what many of us really are. That aspect of our Mas, the use of the open space as a gigantic participatory (before the advent of security, ropes and the word “exclusive”) political and social theatre, is perhaps the most important message that needs to be kept firmly in the minds of those who wish to take over the Mas – specifically those who have reduced it to empty, expressionless displays of bikinis, bras and feathers as if here is Las Vegas.
Continue reading The “Pontificat”: Akilah Holder’s ‘Carnival’ Article →