The Di­manche Gras is sup­posed to be the show that en­cap­su­lates the grand el­e­ments of the fes­ti­val, in­clud­ing the crown­ing of the artistes who best tell the sto­ry of a so­ci­ety in song and splen­dorous cos­tumes and do so just be­fore the spir­its of the Car­ni­val be­gin to roam the earth for 48 hours.

In re­al­i­ty, the show has be­come one long, drab, mo­not­o­nous dis­play of sec­ond-rate tal­ents, which chal­lenges the pa­tience of not on­ly the au­di­ence in the stands and at home in front of the tele­vi­sion and ra­dio but al­so re­flects the sto­ry of de­cline in the Car­ni­val arts.

This year was no dif­fer­ent, as un­pa­tri­ot­ic as that may sound. In fact, it is be­cause of love and re­spect for the cul­ture that I write this col­umn; the or­gan­is­ers and pro­duc­ers will damn me, but I want to urge them to sit them­selves down be­fore a tele­vi­sion set with a few beers (a dis­trac­tion from the au­dio/vi­su­al and a shel­ter­ing of the mind which are need­ed) and look at all six hours of the show as a re­demp­tion of them­selves and their ef­forts.

The first thing that must strike them, by way of a se­ri­ous and hon­est re­view, is that the open­ing vi­su­als and sound seg­ment should have been a mere quar­ter of its length, to say noth­ing of the con­tent. It seemed too much like a poor im­i­ta­tion of a Broad­way pro­duc­tion, with dancers run­ning and jump­ing, por­tray­ing what? A colour­ful stage stood out.

The ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion, which has al­ways been the high point of the show, suf­fered from the in­ca­pac­i­ty and poor qual­i­ty of the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. Pa­trons/view­ers had to bear with too many of the singers dron­ing mo­not­o­nous­ly on with­out the true el­e­ments of what ca­lyp­so is all about: wit, dou­ble en­ten­dre, rhythm and mu­sic, riv­et­ing and chal­leng­ing sto­ries of how “we live, love and sin,” with provoca­tive lyrics by the bards mak­ing in­ci­sive thrusts in­to the sides of politi­cians and oth­er lead­ers.

Cut the num­ber of ca­lyp­so fi­nal­ists down to six, in­clu­sive of the reign­ing monarch. The re­duc­tion in num­bers can force the judges to make crit­i­cal choic­es, se­lect­ing on­ly the very best of the lot from Skin­ner Park, a dif­fi­cult task to be sure. Maybe it will send word to the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and their com­posers that the Sa­van­nah stage is re­served on­ly for high-class per­form­ers.

But notwith­stand­ing how much all of that is need­ed, it’s mere­ly an at­tempt at find­ing some­thing of an im­me­di­ate sur­face rem­e­dy. The re­al prob­lem re­sides with the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, their com­posers, and mu­si­cal arrangers– I will agree with mem­bers of the lat­ter group if they say they can on­ly work with what they re­ceive from the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

Frankly, as said by oth­ers and this colum­nist, the pauci­ty of qual­i­ty is an in­sid­i­ous dis­ease that has not too qui­et­ly been eat­ing away at the en­trails of so­ci­ety.

One first ac­tion is for TU­CO to fash­ion a nur­tur­ing ground for as­pir­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, one that starts at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, on the blocs, work­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion on a cur­ricu­lum to re­place the re­flex ac­tion of teach­ers hus­tling with stu­dents to put to­geth­er a Car­ni­val show for par­ents.

TU­CO and the NCC need to utilise the skills and ex­pe­ri­ences of many of those se­nior bards still around to ground the young in “What is ca­lyp­so,” util­is­ing the works of the likes of Duke, Rud­der, and Fear­less–the lat­ter a lit­tle-known bard whose com­po­si­tion, The Five Rules of Ca­lyp­so, is in­ci­sive and in­struc­tive.

Cos­tum­ing, as re­flect­ed in the pre­sen­ta­tions of the Kings and Queens of Car­ni­val, is of far bet­ter qual­i­ty than the ca­lyp­so, even though there is a same­ness of the past in them. More rev­o­lu­tion­ary de­signs are need­ed.

What is most­ly re­quired now is a re­turn to con­sul­ta­tions and work­shops to gath­er opin­ions and to de­vel­op sol­id pro­pos­als and blue­prints to be­gin a qual­i­ty car­ni­val, re­flec­tive of the times but al­so in­struc­tive of the best in us as a so­ci­ety. One sure rec­om­men­da­tion is to end Di­manche Gras with a “jump-up” by those who have gone to the show to once again feel the life of the car­ni­val as it was cre­at­ed and as it once dis­played it­self on the road.

Al­low for the great spir­its of the Car­ni­val to ex­press them­selves on the Sa­van­nah stage so that those who want to go up there can do so with­out hav­ing to show their back­sides and the rest to any­one in­ter­est­ed. In­stead, cre­ate an op­por­tu­ni­ty for those who want to cel­e­brate to do so with­out the “unlove­ly”.

The road to re­turn­ing Trinidad Car­ni­val as the “Great­est Show on Earth” is through rev­o­lu­tion­ary thought and dis­cus­sion, with pro­gres­sive in­ter­ac­tion amongst the artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty and those of us who be­lieve there is room for cre­ativ­i­ty with­out the crip­pling hor­ror that now pre­vails.

A ma­jor re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is be­fore the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion, and es­pe­cial­ly the groups rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Car­ni­val artis­tic as­so­ci­a­tions, ie, the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Pan Trin­ba­go, and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion. Don’t for­get, for all of us, room must be made to dis­cuss the way out of the “mang” that is drag­ging us be­neath the sur­face.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er–free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host and news di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona, and St Au­gus­tine–In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.