Chalkdust: Carnival studies can help Carnival

Dr Hollis Liverpool, programme professor at the Academy of Arts, Culture and Public Affairs at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), noted that the Carnival Studies programme began in 2012, and that students needed a first degree from an accredited university in order to enter the programme.

“We get hundreds of applicants who want to study how to make a mas, or how to manage a mas band, or how to sing a calypso. Some of them feel very depressed when we tell them it has nothing to do with that,” he said at UTT’s campus on Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain.

Instead, students study subjects such as Caribbean Carnival and Culture, Caribbean History and Civilisation, Social Sciences, Research Techniques, Panyard Studies, Calypso Tent Studies, and Ethnomusicology.

All the courses are research-based, not technical.

Liverpool, prominently known as veteran calypsonian Chalkdust, remarked that on Carnival Monday and Tuesday, Carnival Studies students were on the road, but not playing mas. Instead, they observe and make notes for their public presentations on topics such as alcohol consumption, sound, attitudes, and costume design.

After all that research, the resulting theses highlight plans, initiatives and improvements to existing systems, including the length and content of shows, judging schemes, and policies. Every year, Carnival bodies including Pan Trinbago, National Carnival Commission (NCC), Pan Trinbago, and the National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA), are invited to the presentations.

“After that, they present their research to the individual bands, camps, and tents they worked with, it is for those people to make the changes in their bands.

But you can’t force a calypso tent to accept your suggestions,” said Liverpool. However, he said one of the biggest hindrances to improvements was change. “The problem with NCC is the change. When the government, board or chairman changes, they sometimes change policies and then we have to start all over again,” he said.

He also noted that, to a large extent, Carnival was a traditional entity, therefore there would be no overnight changes.

Liverpool said after leaving the programme, students sometimes go straight into doctoral programmes in cultural or creative studies at UTT, the University of the West Indies (UWI), or at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

He recalled that one student called him to say she was employed at a government ministry, full time, doing research. “Companies and other entities use the same scientific basis for research that we teach.

We show students how to do research so they can apply their skills to other areas,” he said.

In addition to research opportunities in the region, his students would be equipped as lecturers and teachers at educational institutions; and marketable to several public entities, including various NCC committees, Pan Trinbago, TUCO, and NCBA. “It is because of our presentations to them that our students have been taken on quite a number of NCC committees,” he added.

He also noted that students could become judges of steel pan and soca, as well as manage, plan, and assist in the running of regional carnivals across the country.

Liverpool also indicated that UTT has linked with the Carnival Institute, not only as a source of information for the students, but all the theses were forwarded to the institute. However, he said, the Institute did not have the finances to publish them.

According to Liverpool, what UTT needed, was a publication committee in order to publish theses from all its departments. In the mean time, he hoped that private companies would become involved in assisting students to do so.