Eustace, Gordon top mas semis

DEFENDING champ Curtis Eustace topped the King of Carnival Semi-finals on Friday night in a keen contest which saw some surprising casualties. Ten kings and ten queens now advance to tonight’s Dimanche Gras finals. Eustace was a stunning sight — big, brash and brilliant! The fierce head of a huge sea-beast was shown in a splash of purple and turquoise. Wearing a suggestive body-suit, Eustace whipped up the crowd. At one moment his sprawling outfit almost got caught on a radio antenna stage side, but Eustace’s mas experience showed when he was able to keep a cool head and avoid the obstacle. Second was Roland St George, who like Eustace, always has a huge costume. He portrayed “Gladiator Demetrius,” a huge Greek helmet, whose big yellow crest-bristles, he rocked to and fro.

Veteran designer Geraldo Vieira Senior wore his own mas and placed third with “The Might of Rome,” a centurion amid a shower of silver spears, and two golden chariots wheels suddenly set spinning by a burst of fireworks. Fourth was Wade Madray with a huge skull entitled “The Inner Man.” The judges’ choices showed that they clearly believed that size matters. Mas purists who totally carried their costumes fared badly under the judges. Despite Earl Thompson’s “Jupiter, God Of Light And Sky” getting the greatest applause from the audience whom he totally won over with the ease in which he handled his costume and his “look no hands” antics, the judges placed him sixth. Another “carried” costume, South King Leroy Prieto’s “Horus the Avenger,” barely made it into the finals after being placed tenth by the judges.

Peter Minshall’s king, “Son Of Saga Boy”, also hand-held, failed to make the finals. Inexplicably Minshall switched his king from Kerwin Paul to Brian Pantin; the latter gave a very unadventurous portrayal in which he failed to really dance his mas. Fareid Carvalho’s motions made his devil breathe in and out in his totally carried costume “Fire Within.” It was simple and brilliant. Sadly, as he was about to come off the stage, the costume toppled over spectacularly, twice. Designer Brian MacFarlane must be shocked that his huge “Minshallesque” king sailor on stilts, “Dance and Rejoice,” failed to be chosen for the finals. Yet another “carried costume” casualty of the judges! The king finalists are 1. Curtis Eustace (438 points) 2. Roland St George (431) 3. Geraldo Vieira Senior (422) 4. Wade Madray (398) 5. Errol Philip (397) 6. Earl Thompson (397) 7. Lionel Jagessar Junior (382) 8. Dave Lakhan (377) 9. Zinool Mohammed (374) 10. Leroy Prieto (372).

Scoring highest in the Queen of Carnival Semi-finals was Pamela Gordon’s “Winged Jewel of the Forest” portraying birds in green foliage. The semis saw a total shake-up of the results of the preliminaries. Were the judges being indecisive because of the “sameness” of the queens to costumes of yesteryear, which made them feel there were not much to choose from amongst these contenders? While many queens had certain nice design-elements, too often the overall mas was just a mess. Where was the strong overall form? Were there any messages in the art, apart from the bizarre story by Nina MacKenzie about the god Dionysus having had a sex-change? The queen costumes were basically just huge floats, which are embellished in each successive round of competition with a little bit of something added on “here” and a little extra something  dangling from “there.”

Saving the day for the queens was the only one “different,” Jenna-Marie Andre’s “Miss Universe Tantan’s Girl Child.” Andre really brought the costume to life and created a dancing giant Wendy Fitzwilliam right on stage. She was fantastic as she danced her mas. Despite the controversy about the costume’s funding and charges that designer Peter Minshall might be recycling an old outfit from a decade ago, it was a truly stunning sight. The semis saw a spectacular reordering of the preliminary results. The queens advancing to the finals are 1. Pamela Gordon (415 points) 2. Susan Low (399) 3. Tamara Shillingford (397) 4. Gloria Dallsingh (396) 5. Peola Marchand (391) 6. Anra Bobb (391) 7. Jena-Marie Andre (385) 8. Anne-Marie Quammie-Alleyne (382) 9. Nina MacKenzie (372) 10. Rosemarie Jagessar (372).