PERFORMANCES

PERFORMANCES - DIsrupting Jouvert since 2009

Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago

Name: Monsieur Pee Pee - Jouvert (un) traditional character - paramour of the Baby Doll. He has never appeared in Jouvert before.

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Monsieur Pee Pee demands to be acknowledged, as he believes that the Baby Doll gathers too much attention. Particularly when she is constantly in his bed. He boasts more than one relationship at a time, yet insists that no one has ever accused him of being a father.

The Performance: Monsieur Pee Pee is a French Creole man, acting in the vein of the lothario. He is modernized by dress and he saunters onto the stage bragging about his prowess with women, his deserving of attention and denial of being a father. As he boasts and brags, showing off his ‘pipe’ to prove his virility he finds children climbing all over his back, eventually smothering him.

One of many reference images for Monsieur Pee Pee

2025 - Character from the Jouvert Band - CAT IN BAG Productions - Heads or Tails

My character HEAD GAMES deals with the foreign exchange shortage in Trinidad and Tobago.

2024 - NUFF- National Union of Freedom Fighters - Robert Young in his band VULGAR FRACTION honor the life of the Black Power Revolutionaries - I played seventeen year old Beverly Jones who was murdered by the police.

The Performance: BEVERLY JONES - We set out from the street where Beverly once lived and proceeded to The Savanna. It was a deliberately slow procession. One where my instincts took over. In so doing I found myself giving the symbols for PEACE and POWER every few feet.

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Name: Make yuh Bed

Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago - BABY DOLL confronts her own sexuality.

When I set out to create this Performance I did not think about Emma Sulkowicz,the Columbia University student who carried a mattress around campus to protest her rape in 2012. Nor did I consider the stories experienced by a friend who worked for a Publisher who was seduced by a woman she called mattress for all the hijinks gotten into. However, as happens, an idea can align and this one has done so- and it resonated deeply. MAKE YUH BED is literal, figurative and symbolic all at once. So you make your bed, so shall you lie…The Baby Doll struts up and down with her child in hand. She is asking for maintenance.

I confront Baby Doll’s antics head on with MAKE YUH BED. Your bed is a major emotional space. A huge portion of your life is spent in your bed. Baby Doll makes ‘ her’ bed. She lies on her mattress. It is a canvas for her sexuality - it begins in innocence…you are swaddled, cuddled and secure in a blanket…you may have had many accidents in your bed. All manner of secretions, Urine, Blood, Tears and Sweat.

It is a place for sensual exploration and intercourse. It is your tired bodies sleep, your health and eventually your death.

MAKE YUH BED discusses the relationship of Baby Doll with her sexuality. Everything pertaining to the mattress, the pillow and the sheets against her body. Making ‘her’ bed may bring a moment of solace. It may be a reminder to constant pain and regret. The pain pleasure principle.

MAKE YUH BED

The Performance: MAKE YUH BED - Baby Doll folds her mattress across her body like a shield. She is tired and wary but walks in. She is looking for rest. The stuffing pushes out, stating the words to be read. At last she places the mattress on the ground, simulating the actions of sleep,and other forms of intimacy before she gets up and wonders on again.

One of many reference image for Make your Bed

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Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago - 2023 - Jouvert (un) traditional character - The Baby of Baby Doll. She has never appeared in Jouvert

Name:The Baby - Forced to grow up in precarious circumstances. Passed from hand to hand and back again. The Baby is the most vulnerable of them all.

This year there was something compellingly challenging to me about BABY DOLL. The portrayal of the vulnerable woman walking around with a swaddled infant seemed more concerning than ever. As happens with all of my Performances, the answer caught me unexpectedly. Years in from my original portrayal of BABY DOLL (2011) and last year with BLOOD MAS (2021) I ask the question…WHAT ABOUT THE BABY? To me it was so glaringly obvious! Who really sees the baby? Also the mother herself IS THE BABY as well. Unprotected, unsupported. Yet again, it was clear that I had to send this message for 2023.

The Performance: THE BABY - The baby enters the stage on hands and knees. Her diaper is filled with baby powder and it causes a large cloud of dust to appear around her. She rolls around and flails her arms and legs. She is all alone on the stage keeping her own.

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MAS DURING COVID

Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago - 2021 - Jouvert (un) traditional character - BLOOD MAS - Baby Doll, Mud Mas and Pisinlit. She has never appeared in Jouvert

Name: B L O O D M A S - This year I chose to look at both the traditional Mud Mas and the historical (and banned) portrayal Pissinlit. Pissinlit was portrayed by men who dressed as women and made fun of their frailties such as menstruation. The costume also gives acknowledgment to Carrie the movie where the teenage girl has telekinetic powers. Most recently our nation was rocked by the murder of a young woman by the name of Andrea Bharatt and my portrayal ultimately looks at crimes against women.

My most emotionally taxing and necessary Performance to date. I believe that Ms Bharatt asked me to tell her story. I had to respond to society. I employee, Make this Mas part of MUD MAS … let women tell their stories. Let the abused not be shamed into submission. SEE IT FOR WHAT IT IS.

The Performance: B L O O D M A S

She begins with her foot showing the date in blood. She is wearing a simple slip and carrying a knife. The Performance begins with her bleeding from her calf and then down her arm and onto the knife that drips down her leg. Eventually blood is splattered onto her virginal shift, trickling down. She turns and the front of her night clothing is drenched in blood. Finally blood pours down her head. She begins to slash out again and again with the knife.

As part of the Jouvert experience I ask that all victims of abuse and violence be given this voice. Yes, the costume is scary to look at. Yet, it is also strong, because it makes clear that you may kill the person but the spirit rises up and takes its power back. Her eyes are open and she is not defeated. She shall NOT be forgotten.

Jouvert can accommodate protest. It can handle controversy. It is not meant to be tamed in any way. The characters we laud have been played to scare, to remind and to make sense of things we cannot understand. My portrayal intends to be part of that pantheon.

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The Performance: JAB JAB

Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago.

2015

Name: JAB JAB- Jouvert (un) traditional character - Jab Jab

I looked at the concept of the Jab Jab and decided to make a statement about domestic violence in Trinidad and Tobago. The Jab Jab usually carries a whip and strikes another Jab Jab about the body. It is a dangerous mas and is predominantly a male masquerade with only one woman joining a group because her husband ‘allowed’ her to do so a few years ago.

The Performance: JAB JAB

My character the Jab Jab does not self flagellate or hit another Jab Jab. Instead her ‘whip’ comes from her breasts. She makes the cracking of the whip sound by blowing into the carefully placed expanding and contracting party favors that she has fashioned into a makeshift weapon. She guards against any male approach by creating this action.

added note: this costume required a lot of research to consider how to create a retractable rope. It is a device I want to explore to the furthest extent of possibility.

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Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago.

2014

Name: BAT - Jouvert (un) traditional character - Bat with mechanical wings.

What could I add to the traditional bat character to bring it into the twenty-first century? This was my question to myself for this costume that has never been altered in any way.

We call very large umbrellas house and land. They reminded me of wings so I decided to consider them for my interpretation of the BAT. The costume being all black also had a dominatrix edge to it.

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Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago.

2011

Name: BABY DOLL - Jouvert (un) traditional character - Baby Doll carries ‘her’ Man child

For 2011 my interpretation of the traditional Baby Doll was all about man as child or baby being held by the character, baby doll. This portrayal is part Pieta, part woman as nurturer turned on its head. The woman no longer seeks maintenance from any man in the street, calling men out to face their responsibilities. Instead, she coddles the man, treating him as though he is delicate and oh so fragile. He in turn allows her to take control. By doing so, she is given the false role of superior caregiver. For the man is a weight on the woman, as she grapples with the role of savior.

Performance: Baby Doll with man-child

addendum: This was my first Carnival without The Bookmann. As I was returning to camp , a rowdy group of men came up to me and said loudly that I was carrying a spirit and tipped alcohol out of the bottle he carried between my costume and them.A tiny drop fell on my toes. An unexpected sensation that I found deeply moving.

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Oooo Goowd, look at dat baby!” ….

“I wish I was dat baby boy!”….

”Yuh ketch meh, ah taught it was ah real man yuh carryin’ gyul.”….

” Wha happen? He drunk or what?”…

”Put that baby on the breast.”

“He sleepin?”…

”Leh meh giyyuh maintainance, here…” (I received ten dollars from a man who offered to take responsibility

….and from a young man, “Ah responsible, willin’ and hard workin’ if yuh need meh.

Responses to Baby Doll and Man child

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Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago.

2013

Name: DAME LORRAINE - Jouvert (un) traditional character - Dame Lorraine and Hairy Beast/Bear interpretation- looking at the issues of beauty

I look at using the traditional characters of our festival modernizing them to create new hybrids. I chose the banned concept of the Hairy Beast along with the character of Dame Lorraine which is usually played by men to caricature women. I looked at beauty augmentation of bigger breasts and buttocks alongside the Goldilocks concept of Caucasian beauty being right by wearing long blond cascading hair representing ultimate perfection.

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Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago.

2010

Name: THE BOX- Jouvert (un) traditional character - The Box - What caused the destruction of man?

The Groovy Soca Monarch for 2010 is Sherwayne Winchester, and he won with a song called Murder. For his presentation, he had women dressed in negligees and one very rotund woman, who moved very well. The whole thing unravels taste wise very rapidly, ending with the woman jumping on him and killing him.

The choice of black was to create a neutral palette from which to bounce off the box concept. Harking back to the monolith from 2001 A space odyssey, the box had to be the focal point. Overall, again I was very pleased with the response this year to this work.

Reactions to The Box:What caused the Destruction of Man?

"Woman! Dayze what cause de distruction ah man."

"Ah doh know. Ah fraid to look in de box oui!"

"Ah could look?"

"Man cause de destruction!"

"Is me!"

"Ha,ha,ha,ha, ah get it yes!"

"Bu wait ah minute?"

"Oooh gooowd! Dat clever boy!"

"What yuh expec!"

"Is we yes!"

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Re-interpretations of traditional carnival characters of Trinidad and Tobago.

2009

Name: Tribute to Aubrey Beardsley - Jouvert (un) traditional character - Baby Doll.

Since the year 1999, I have been observing ways to make ‘Art’ at carnival time that breaks the boundaries of ‘mas.’ To me, carnival is a gigantic, uncharted territory of creative possibilities. In 2008, I decided that the ‘old mas’ character of Dame Lorraine should be revised. The Dame Lorraine was played by men in our carnival history. Men literally made fun of female frailties. Yet, today, women play the character. This was both puzzling and challenging to me.

Why would women parody themselves? Men are not doing this? This led to the concept of looking in on the male from a female perspective. I had always enjoyed the works of Aubrey Beardsley, and instantly the idea to ‘Perform’ one of his sexually charged works lept up at me.

No woman in our carnival history had attempted to ‘wear’ a phallic piece, in all this time. Surely, we enjoy making light of our politics with the satire of the ‘Bomb competition’ during the wee hours of Lunde Gras. We wear the prosthetic breasts and bottoms, and men have extended the penis in play. But in all of the good fun, feminine imagery is blown up to an extreme of bikini mas. When women ‘play themselves’ they too seem to miss the irony of it all.

So, amidst the good fun, I chose to cut a path with my attire, and the response was beyond my wildest expectations. Men were stunned and women giggled. No one passed me by without comment, and more often than not, the comments were close to me, for my ears alone. Pictures abounded, flashbulbs went off in abundance and people wanted to pose with me at every step.

The approach from men was extremely revealing. Men commented from the funny to the delicately explicit. But always with a curiosity and respect. “May I, can I…” The brave asked to touch, and it came from both sexes.

The combination of the obviously feminine wearer, nicely draped, and then the Bourroquite-like protrusion of the penis, gave rise (pun intended) to a bobbing and weaving of my presentation. However it was not mistaken for anything but what it was.

Reference: Aubrey Beardsley’s The Examination of the Herald