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Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Bit Depth

How I would fix Carnival

by

20140224

I have a lot to say about the er­rors of Car­ni­val's lead­er­ship, but this week I want­ed to hear from peo­ple whose work I en­joy and who al­so have both opin­ions on and skin in the fes­ti­val.

Leslie-Ann Bois­selle is a ten-time queen of Car­ni­val con­tes­tant and sug­gest­ed that ca­lyp­so should be tak­en out of Di­manche Gras.

"Leave the kings and queens for Di­manche Gras, be­cause tourists don't un­der­stand the ca­lyp­so but the vi­su­al medi­um of the mas res­onates with them."

She be­lieves that both shows, a ca­lyp­so fi­nal and a cos­tume-based Di­manche Gras could be "tight, well co-or­di­nat­ed pro­duc­tions, pro­fes­sion­al­ly pro­duced.

"Make it some­thing that could be filmed and mar­ket­ed for sale, some­thing that could be run on in­ter­na­tion­al TV as a two-hour spe­cial."

BC Pires, Guardian colum­nist and not­ed J'Ou­vert mud­s­quer­ad­er, wants to re­turn Car­ni­val to a lev­el play­ing field.

"I'd axe out VIP sec­tions of any­thing, in­clud­ing de­clar­ing all-in­clu­sive mas bands il­le­gal.

"On Car­ni­val Tues­day, buy a firetruck­ing beer from a youth hus­tling cold ones from a buck­et or drink hot rum from your own wine­skin.

"If we keep turn­ing what used to be some­thing that brought us all to­geth­er in­to the main de­vice for sep­a­rat­ing us, it will end in blood­shed on the streets, and not the one or two chop­pings or stab­bings we have now. There will be an erup­tion of vi­o­lence that will make the steel­band clash­es of old look like pri­ma­ry-school re­cess lock neck. We will all be play­ing ca­su­al­ty."


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