Carnival Tuesday in Trinidad with the band Tribe.
What’s the opposite of a global pandemic?
Trinidad Carnival.
The ultimate life-affirming ritual, a celebration of freedom in its most distilled sense, the Caribbean’s largest Carnival has of course been on pause due to the pandemic—leaving legions of devotees overwhelmingly distraught. But as vaccinations ramp up in the region, Carnival junkies the world over are asking one thing and one thing only: Will the bacchanal return in 2022? To that end, Paige de Leon of the Trinidad and Tobago Promoters Association, which represents carnival content creators in Trinidad and Tobago and beyond, chats with us about the future of the festival.
Should there or should there not be a Trinidad Carnival 2022? Make your best case.
The balancing act that every government and human being has been engaged in since this pandemic began comes down to the balance between lives and livelihoods, between lives and living. So maybe it is not about whether we should have carnival but more importantly whether we need to have carnival in 2022.
Carnival is about freedom. It was born as rebellion against oppression; enslaved people used it as an ideological weapon against their captors, a mockery of everything that held them hostage. The Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday was a time when enslaved people were allowed to sing their own songs, in their own language, and be themselves, portraying characters from their own stories—which their captors tried so hard to erase. They were permitted to abandon their captors’ systems of control and, as we say in T&T, “free up.” For us, in 2021, Carnival is still our opportunity to be free, to sing our own songs: Calypso, Soca, Rapso, Steel Pan. This is not something that we do just as an activity; it is a response to the call of a spirit that moves us to travel from every corner of the globe to be fully present in our own lives and pay homage to happiness. For two months, our little island explodes with light and life and becomes the center of the world.
That same world finds itself in impossible captivity right now. Since February 2020, when we staged our last Carnival on the streets of Port of Spain, we have all—not just in Trinidad and Tobago but the whole world—been in a state of deep melancholy. If the spirit of Carnival truly calls us to face our enemies, then maybe this is when we need it the most. Our most important assets—our culture, our people-assets—are largely idle.
Steel pan competition at Trinidad Carnival
Just today I took a short trip just around Port of Spain to see if I could reconnect with the spirit that has been absent for such a long time. I went to visit places that house the three pillars of Carnival: steel pan, soca/calypso music, masquerade. I wanted to see for myself the state of “Ms. Carnival,” as we lovingly call her. The nostalgia was overwhelming. The sadness was overwhelming. Because we in Trinidad and Tobago are in so many ways at a standstill—just waiting! There is no magic in our land right now; there is only silence. And I think that we can all agree that the world needs magic to bring it back to life, to bring us all back to feeling free.So back to your original question. Why should we have carnival? the best reason I can think of is because we are poorer as human beings without it. It is the spark that lights us up. We need to heal. Maybe Carnival can be one of the incentives for safely leaving the pandemic behind by making intelligent personal choices—a way to apply a “Carnival mentality” to the global fight against Covid-19.
If there is no Carnival, how will it impact Trinidad and Tobago?
I will answer in the language of money—which everyone, even those who have never been bitten by the carnival bug, can appreciate. For Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is a serious make-or-break business, employing, both directly and obliquely, over 100,000 people. Carnival is not just about the two days of the parade, but hundreds of events that lead up to the parade and span the length and breadth of our two islands. It’s about pan competitions, parties, stick-fighting matches, concerts, singing competitions for children, mini-mas parades all over the country, factories making the mas, studios that record the music. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Around ten percent of the adult population of Trinidad and Tobago derives some element of their income from the staging of Carnival. Carnival generates direct injections of foreign currency to the tune of over US $74 million, in just the week prior to Carnival Monday and Tuesday; this money goes almost completely to small and micro-enterprises. Given the economic shocks faced by our country in recent years, most significantly the loss of revenue from the drop in global oil prices, the complete disappearance of the ecosystem grounding the largest entrepreneurial class in our country is devastating.
Who are Trinidad and Tobago Promoters Association (TTPA), and what are your demands besides calling for the staging of Carnival 2022?
The TTPA is the body that envelopes event practitioners based in Trinidad and Tobago. Our members are some of the world’s greatest festival innovators and it is clear from what they are able to accomplish every year that they know how to navigate the global fun economy. We decided at the inception of the TTPA three years ago to use our influence not just to advocate for the interests of our core members but for all of those within our stakeholder family: artists who make music, mas creators whose craft is the fabric that Carnival is made of, engineers and technicians who build the infrastructure to host our events, hoteliers, restauranteurs, supermarkets, taxi drivers, stylists, make-up artists—and the list goes on. That stakeholder map is replicated in each county, each time a Caribbean-style carnival is staged.
Paige de Leon among Carnival costumes in Port of Spain
We recently presented the Government of Trinidad and Tobago with our vision for the reopening and reimagining of how we do Carnival, because once we are completely out of this pandemic, once the world is ready to truly exhale, we want them to come and exhale here at Carnival. One of the things we have proposed is the establishment of modern processes to govern the operations of the festival. Right now hosting events can be utterly cumbersome because of an archaic legislative framework inherited largely from our colonial past. State agencies like the police, the fire services and the court have a heavy hand in how each and every event is staged. We have, in that vein, asked for imaginative new legislation to be crafted specifically for our festival. We have asked for a digitized registration system for any carnival event product, which can record vaccination status as well as other data to facilitate pre-emptive contact tracing activities. We have asked for a new Carnival stakeholder council to be established, including the event producers, in an effort to reenergize how we think about the festival from a public policy point of view. Our proposals also include how we can conduct a scaled-down Carnival season as a short-term pandemic response, in which only managed events incorporating all the pillars of carnival—pan, soca, mas—are staged, without the street parade part.
We have also proposed collaboration with the state on its marketing strategy for destination Trinidad and Tobago. And since we have a room shortage that keeps some people away from Carnival, we have proposed mechanisms to improve this. We also want to develop the Carnival product outside the capital city of Port-of-Spain more robustly, so that those who need a slower pace can participate in Carnival in the south of the island or in Tobago and still have the same quality of experience. These simple additions to what exists now are game changers for our festival.
What, according to TTPA, does a "safe" Carnival look like?
One where everyone participating—patrons, staff, everyone—is fully vaccinated. Trinidad and Tobago’s vaccination uptake is promising and the state has worked hard to ensure that as many people as possible have access to vaccines. A safe carnival also looks like one in which a potent communication and public engagement strategy for how to navigate a post-Covid world in a festival environment is rolled out, so that everyone who participates is aware of their responsibilities. A safe Carnival looks like one in which the current systems and processes that support the infrastructure are reimagined to fit with the times and keep everyone healthy. Will we have to wear masks on the road to play mas? That is a decision for public health experts—it’s a conversation we need to have. The fundamental question is, can we be safe in a Carnival environment when we are largely vaccinated? We have to explore that question sincerely, weighing the health, economic and social concerns and come to a decision—soon. Time is running out for 2022. The TTPA has submitted robust and well thought out proposals to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago about how this can be accomplished. The question of political will and desire to push past fear will be critical here.
Finally, the big question: If you were to wager, will there be a Carnival 2022?
The Carnivalista and the Trini in me are screaming “yes, yes, yes!” at the top of my lungs. But the realist in me is more cautious. The content creators and practitioners are open to compromise, dialogue and change. I believe that we have the capacity as an industry to make a bigger, better, more efficient carnival a reality, intelligently and safely. But I think that aside from just having Trinidad Carnival next year, we have to see a new way for our festival to exist in the globally competitive tourism environment. The model is an acceptable and attractive one which, without much planning, has become a global success story. How does Trinidad and Tobago own and cleverly turn that model into a loved brand that continues to nourish its source? Our next Carnival, whenever it is staged, has to have evolved. We have to be proactive now—as we prepare to welcome the world again.
PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD - FEBRUARY 09: Soca stars Destra Garcia (L) and Machel Montano (C) sing a ... [+]
LOCAL TIP: It’s no substitute for the real thing, but Carnival vibes on US shores are nothing to scoff at, especially during summertime. Warm up for New York Carnival, staged over Labor Day weekend in Brooklyn, by enjoying some crucial fetes by veteran NYC-Caribbean promoters. Vale Vibe Breakfast Party on D’Yacht lights up the Hornblower Infinity, Grenada style, on August 21. Shorblu and Caesars Army stage Darty—that’s Day X Party—at the oh-so-sexy Harbor in Manhattan the day after that; don’t miss Shorblu’s weekly afterword soca party each Thursday at Southern fusion restaurant Soco in Brooklyn. Live in Love Events’ Lime on the Rooftop on August 29 is sure to be an event you’ll remember (well, not remember is more like it).
NYC Carnival itself, meanwhile, is packed with so many fetes you won’t know what to do with yourself. Two standouts feature live performances of a very different sort: Upscale Promotions brings out Jamaican icon Chronixx at the Brooklyn Mirage, while CYardie’s Deja Vu fete features soca stars Lyrikal and Skinny Fabulous.
Planning ahead for Miami Carnival in October? If not, let Renaissance Carnival be your one-stop shop. Their Miami Packages leave you with none of the work and all of the bacchanal.
