WAYNE BERKE­LEY

An­oth­er prod­uct of Bel­mont, Wayne Berke­ley first at­tract­ed na­tion­al at­ten­tion in 1965 when he de­signed the cos­tume for the win­ner of the then Jaycee's Car­ni­val Queen con­test. From a very ear­ly age he grav­i­tat­ed to draw­ing and paint­ing, win­ning a chil­dren's Com­mon­wealth com­pe­ti­tion. While at­tend­ing St Mary's Col­lege, like so many of T&T's young cre­ative minds of his gen­er­a­tion, he was in­flu­enced by the renowned artist M P Al­ladin. As a mas de­sign­er and band­leader, his fo­cus was al­ways to por­tray and rep­re­sent the spir­it of Car­ni­val while main­tain­ing his orig­i­nal­i­ty. His were not of the 'his­to­ry book' type of por­tray­als as he per­sist­ed in the cre­ation of fan­ta­sy cos­tumes stick­ing to his phi­los­o­phy that Car­ni­val cos­tume de­sign­ing is akin to po­et­ry and sto­ry telling and that Car­ni­val was a street fete, al­beit cre­ative, beau­ti­ful, well or­gan­ised, punc­tu­al and or­der­ly.

Even though his for­ay in­to mas had start­ed a lot ear­li­er, it was in 1973 that as a large band leader, he burst on­to the scene with the first of his nine win­ning Band of the Year pro­duc­tions "Se­crets of the Sky" (along with Bob­by Am­mon). Imag­i­na­tive sec­tions such as 'Storm Clouds' adorned this pre­sen­ta­tion. His oth­er eight win­ning pro­duc­tions-from a to­tal of 18 bands (list­ed be­low) span­ning 1973 to 1997-were in 1974, 1980, then six con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries from 1989 to 1994, sur­pass­ing George Bai­ley's beaver trick from 1959-1963. He placed sec­ond on five oc­ca­sions and third on three. In 1998, he de­signed yet an­oth­er win­ner "Ama­ranth-The Se­cret Gar­den", this time for band leader Earl Pat­ter­son.

Berke­ley was by no means ex­clu­sive­ly a Car­ni­val de­sign­er as he was con­stant­ly in de­mand fur­ther afield (in ad­di­tion to the de­mand for his Car­ni­val de­sign­ing ser­vices) as a the­atri­cal and com­mer­cial de­sign­er, at home, in the Caribbean, in Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca. In 2000 he suf­fered a stroke on his right side (his 'writ­ing/draw­ing' side), but re­sumed draw­ing with his left hand though on a much small­er scale. To ho­n­our and recog­nise his works the Her­itage Li­brary di­vi­sion of Nalis host­ed a Car­ni­val Pro­gramme and Ex­hi­bi­tion en­ti­tled "The Evo­lu­tion of Cos­tume De­sign: The Con­tri­bu­tion of Wayne Berke­ley 1965 to 2010." In 1974 he was award­ed the Hum­ming Bird Gold Medal for his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of Car­ni­val.

PE­TER MIN­SHALL

(Source: main­ly from the files of Ron Em­rit)

British Guiana's loss was cer­tain­ly T&T's gain when, as a child, Guyanese-born Pe­ter Min­shall and his fam­i­ly moved to Trinidad. The Queen's Roy­al Col­lege and Lon­don, Eng­land-ed­u­cat­ed Min­shall has be­come T&T's most in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed artist in the field of mas and the­atri­cal pro­duc­tions, since win­ning his first prize for orig­i­nal­i­ty at the age of 13, en­ter­ing the chil­dren's Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion as an African witch doc­tor.

His phi­los­o­phy of mas is one of street the­atre as ev­i­denced by his Car­ni­val bands through the years, some 25 span­ning from 1978 to 2006 (see list that fol­lows). In 1976, he de­signed for Stephen Lee He­ung who took Band-of-the-Year hon­ors with "Par­adise Lost". In 1978, he formed his own Car­ni­val band, the Callaloo Com­pa­ny and went on to pro­duce many clas­sics among them two epic "TRILO­GIES", his bands from 1983-1985 (Riv­er, Callaloo and The Gold­en Cal­abash) and those from 1995-1997 (Hal­lelu­jah, Song of the Earth and Ta­pes­try).

In 1982, he was award­ed a fel­low­ship by the Guggen­heim Foun­da­tion. As a de­sign­er and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, Min­shall cre­at­ed the­atre be­yond the con­fines of au­di­to­ri­ums and con­cert halls. He made the streets of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, his stage dur­ing Car­ni­val with unique de­signs that fea­tured 'danc­ing mo­biles,' the most fa­mous of which were his male and fe­male char­ac­ters "Saga Boy" and "Tan Tan".

His work was dis­played in 1987 at the 19th In­ter­na­tion­al Bi­en­ni­al Ex­po­si­tion of Con­tem­po­rary Art in Sao Pao­lo, Brazil, and at the 1993 Ed­in­burgh Fes­ti­val in Ed­in­burgh, Scot­land. Oth­er coun­tries where his work was dis­played were Bar­ba­dos, Cana­da (Toron­to), Eng­land (Lon­don), France (Nimes, Paris), Ja­maica, Japan (Tokyo), and the USA (Mi­a­mi, San Fran­cis­co). He won the Large Band-of-the-Year ti­tle six times (1979, 1981, 1987, 1995, 1996, and 1997). Min­shall took a break from com­pe­ti­tion from 2003 to 2005, but re­turned in 2006 to win the Medi­um Band-of-the-Year ti­tle. New ma­te­ri­als in the mak­ing of mas' such as fi­bre­glass fish­ing rods were first used by him. His Car­ni­val suc­cess gained him world­wide recog­ni­tion and he went on to de­sign and chore­o­graph the fol­low­ing in­ter­na­tion­al events:

•1987-Open­ing Cer­e­monies of the Pan-Amer­i­can Games, In­di­anapo­lis, In­di­ana, USA

•1992-Open­ing Cer­e­monies of the XXV Sum­mer Olympics, Barcelona, Spain

•1994-Soc­cer World Cup Fi­nals, Chica­go, Illi­nois, USA

•1996-Open­ing Cer­e­monies of the XXVI Sum­mer Olympics, At­lanta, Geor­gia, USA

•2002-A 12-minute seg­ment (Fire With­in) at the Open­ing Cer­e­monies of the Win­ter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Min­shall al­so worked with the French com­pos­er Jean-Michel Jarre in the pre­sen­ta­tion of two con­certs in Paris, France: Con­cert at La De­fense on Bastille Day 1991; and Un­esco's Con­cert for Tol­er­ance at the Eif­fel Tow­er in 1995.

Berke­ley's pre­sen­ta­tions

1973-Se­crets of the Sky-1st (with Bob­by Am­mon)

1974-Kalei­do­scope-1st

1975-A La Carte-2nd

1976-Na­tion­al Her­aldry-2nd

1977-Hawaii

1978-All That Jazz-3rd

1979-The Rit­u­al-3rd

1980-Gen­e­sis-1st

1981-Mas­quer­ade-3rd

1989-Hero Myth-1st

1990-Nine­teen-Nine­ty-1st

1991-Swan Lake-1st

1992-Ti­tan­ic-1st

1993-Strike Up the Band-1st

1994-Mi­rage-1st

1995-Origa­mi-2nd

1996-Show­boat-2nd

1997-Les Bi­joux-2nd

min­shall's pre­sen­ta­tions

1976-De­sign­er for Stephen Lee He­ung's

Par­adise Lost

1978-Zo­di­ac

1979-Car­ni­val of the Sea-1st

1980-Danse Macabre

1981-Jun­gle Fever -1st

1982-Pa­pil­lon-2nd

1983-The Riv­er

1984-Callaloo

1985-The Gold­en Cal­abash: Princes of

Dark­ness and Lords of Light-2nd

1986-Rat Race

1987-Car­ni­val Is Colour-1st

1988-Jumbies

1989-San­ti­man­i­tay-2nd

1990-Tan­ta­na-2nd

1993-Don­key Der­by-3rd

1994-The Odyssey-2nd

1995-Hal­lelu­jah-1st

1996-Song of the Earth-1st

1997-Ta­pes­try: Threads of Life-1st

1998-Red-3rd

1999-The Lost Tribe-3rd

2000-M2K

2001-This Is Hell

2002-Pi­coplat

2003-Ship of Fools

2006-Sa­cred Heart-1st, Medi­um Band

Min­shall's AWARDS:

1982-Guggen­heim Fel­low­ship

1987-Trinidad & To­ba­go Cha­co­nia Medal Sil­ver (for Cul­ture)

1991-Hon­orary Doc­tor of Let­ters, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies

1996-Trinidad & To­ba­go Trin­i­ty Cross (for Art and Cul­ture)

2001-Prince Claus of the Nether­lands Award for out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to Car­ni­val

2001-2002-Em­my Award, Acad­e­my of Tele­vi­sion Arts and Sci­ences 54th An­nu­al US Prime­time Em­my Awards, "Out­stand­ing Cos­tumes for A Va­ri­ety or Mu­sic Pro­gramme"/Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of the 2002 Olympic Win­ter.

2005-Re­pub­lic Day Award, T&T

A film on his life as an artist en­ti­tled MAS MAN by Dal­ton Nar­ine has won rave re­views and is a must see for all lovers of the art form that is Min­shall sim­ply calls "mas".

Most re­cent­ly, he has con­tributed in an ad­vi­so­ry role to the new band "Skull­dug­gery", whose com­mit­tee in­cludes not­ed mas men Pe­ter Samuel and Earl Pat­ter­son.