The merry monarch played itself from "coke-busting" ole mas during J'Ouvert that flowed with mud mas over Carnival Monday to Tuesday's colourful cloths, feathers, bikinis and G-strings.As usual, sailor bands, fancy indians, jab molassie, and other traditional characters were precious displays.
The golden age of the 50s and 60s when Saldenah, Bailey, McWilliams, Morris and other craft masters ruled the mas has long gone. Those masters ushered in beautiful theatrical tapestries of the 70s, which lasted throughout the 90s when the artistry of Berkley, Lee Heung, Hart, Minshall, Derek, Garib, and later MacFarlane, among others, dominated Carnival with enchanting imagery. They'd turned streets into theatres where compelling tales of human and mythical events were told.
The story of Bailey's Back to Africa, Jason Griffith's King Sailors, Berkley's Masquerade, and Minshall's The River are among the extraordinary examples of Carnival's kinetic and creative energy. When taken with compelling folk mas such as pierrot grenades, melodic minstrels, poetic midnight robbers, menacing jab molassie, and blood-sucking bats, Carnival took on layered dimensions in entertainment of captivating depth.
Added to that exceptional experience were the beauty of fancy indians, burroquites, fancy clowns, dame lorraines, fire-spitting dragons and graceful moko jumbies.Carnival back then symbolised sheer indigenous artistry of the mas makers, and joy for masqueraders and spectators alike.
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