WHERE IS THE ART IN BEING TRINI?

It’s perverse that people in power in this country refuse to take seriously what the non-political or genuinely interested have to contribute to the management of our society. It was Minshall who gave shape and definition to our Carnival by putting it into the context of street theatre and broadening the stage on which not just a small band of blue devils or midnight robbers acted out their drama, but one where thousands of actors and actresses interpreted a way of seeing the world or made sense of its complexity. He brought back the idea of "meaning" to mas.’ Alas, he has not been able to stem the irresistible slide away from theatre and into vaudeville, because few are listening or care enough.

I’ve been wondering if the Carnival is responsible for the very narrow way in which we view culture in TT. It seems to have sucked so much of our creative endeavour into one acceptable expression of culture, and one alone. For example, there are still only small pockets of support for the visual arts. But, that may be because people are unsure and want a recognisably authentic voice in, say, painting, as in the work the Haitians produce. Or it may be that the uninitiated find art galleries intimidating places or the form too intellectual or fey.

It’s right not to just import other people’s art forms but to build on your own. And, to a large extent, we have done that. In fact, we have turned it on its head and exported our culture very successfully, most notably the steel pan. Minshall’s costumes featuring centre-stage at the opening of important international events is further evidence of that, as is London-based Mahogany Carnival Arts exporting its costumes around the world for similar events. But, now that Carnival itself is such a big money spinner there is danger in this form of indigenous cultural expression moving away from the people who gave birth to it.

I’ve been struck by the fact that the music of Carnival now, which is not calypso or even soca (calypso is relegated to the tents), has little interest in social matters, being more focused on style rather than content. It is valid, and very successful, but it is not the voice of the people. And, as for the steel pan, which has been the most creative of our indigenous arts, it faces its own economic difficulties and realities that may have a long-term effect on its capacity to continue being the great leveller that it now is. The debate about what choice of piece to play at Panorama signals a certain crisis point.

I heard Pat Bishop, musicologist extraordinaire, once question where is the art in Carnival now? The answer is that it is not that easy to find. She thinks she hears something emerging from the periphery of all the money making.

It set me thinking about how street art, as opposed to street theatre, grew up in cities such as New York or Paris — I consider Trinidad a city state — and whether our young would turn to modern forms of urban art such as "graffiti" as a means of personal expression. Not that graffiti (slogan painting and/or perishable street art) is actually modern, the Greeks and Romans produced it. Modern graffiti, and here I mean decorative intervention as opposed to just spray-can painting, seeks to subvert the city space and reclaim it from big business with their massive buildings, shopping malls, huge advertising bill boards etc.

I am not advocating graffiti, and I know that it is the scourge of big city dwellers and mayors, but it’s interesting for us to contemplate because it’s an expression of resistance, usually by the poor urban black — as our national cultural forms used to be, and because taking art out onto the street leads to the politicisation of the artist — as it once did to some of our own Carnival artists.

I recognise that we do not tend towards literature, or visual art (although traditional Carnival-costume making presents a certain contradiction in that regard) as means of cultural expression, but now that Carnival has, in all truth, ceased to be the voice of the dispossessed, where will that voice be heard and how? Can a new authentic TT form of street art emerge?

David Rudder is right when he reflects that we undervalue the role of art in our society. If we understood its importance, we would be trying, strenuously, to broaden the canvas and help our young people to use art, instead of the gun. But, more importantly, what do our young people want to say? Until they answer that question they will not find the language in which to express themselves.