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| Female Masquerader Carnival 2010, Leslie Robertson-Toney |
Around this time last year the Washington DC based photographer, Leslie Robertson- Toney of Studio Lafoncette Photography, was gearing up for the Trinidad Carnival season armed with a heavy duty Nikon camera, tape-recorder and a list of interview questions. These items made up her research tools for a multi-media exhibit entitled, Mas Women & Women Behind de Mas: A Photo Exhibit, held in April of last year at the Emergence Community Arts Collective in Washington DC. The exhibit included audio, video and original photography that focused on female masqueraders, designers and band-leaders. The aim was to gauge the role of women in this art-form, to seek out their inspiration; moreover, to find out whom these women were. In turn, I am taking the opportunity to find out who Leslie is, what inspires her work and what she thinks about Carnival.
What was your purpose with this exhibit, your inspiration?
In January WomenArts (previously known as The Fund for Women Artists) a non– profit organization geared at promoting women artists, announced their third annual Support Women Arts NOW (SWAN) Day. People were invited to host their own events across the US and internationally, and announce them on the SWAN Day calendar. I decided that I would use my trip to Trinidad & Tobago carnival as an opportunity to focus on women who compete in the Queen of the Bands competition, and women who lead children’s carnival bands during the festival. I love mas. I’ve always loved it. I made my own costumes and pranced around the backyard as a child. I sat in awe and watched live broadcasts of the children’s parades and dreamed of playing mas with the “big bands”. The idea of the work it takes to produce mas, the energy and passion it takes to portray a costume are all intriguing to me. So it was fitting that I should do an interview on mas women as my first project.
What did your learn from this experience?
I learnt that the spirit of carnival is alive and well in Trinidad & Tobago. I was getting a little worried that the commercialism and exclusivity that’s permeated so many aspects of carnival was killing it. The interviews with these women gave me an opportunity to hear how they began in mas, why they continue, and what they are doing currently to influence it in their own ways. There are still people in Trinidad who have opinions independent of the commercial all-inclusive (which is really exclusive) set. There are still bands with a serious message where they are concerned with making costumes affordable for families, with creating designs that tell a story beyond “Look at me!” And there are people interested in keeping the traditions alive. Moreover, the women I interviewed were passionate, committed to what they’re doing, witty, honest and very accommodating.
How would you define a mas woman?
A mas woman is a woman who makes (designs, creates, builds) or plays mas for carnival.
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| Mas Woman Gwendolyn Smith, Photo: Leslie Robertson-Toney |
The word “freedom” came up often in answers about mas. Is there something specific or special about Carnival that exudes “freedom”?
I’ve been thinking, and investigating this idea of carnival as a festival that is really about ancestral connections, remembrance. In some ways, I think, carnival is about freedom, it occurred during the period where Africans had the most freedom to practice their traditional customs, and they found subversive ways to protest and decry the abuses of slavery and indentureship – which was another way of claiming freedom (of expression). A big part of modern carnival is about freedom – freedom to “jump and wave and misbehave.”It’s about women’s freedom to party and do things that in the somewhat conservative culture of the Caribbean, that women haven’t been expected to do. It’s freedom to prance in the streets with barely any clothes, to dress as a queen, an angel or a whore for a day or two. It’s also an opportunity to cloak yourself in a costume that disguises you and gives you freedom to make statements you otherwise might not have. I know some well-behaved “ladies” who play jammette for carnival. The women I interviewed seemed as free as any woman in modern society. Some of them expressed approval of the liberties women take with dressing (or not) for carnival, others had more conservative views. They were all compelled in some way to choose this tradition of being queen of a band and all the responsibilities that it demands. They seemed to do so enthusiastically.
*Excerpts from the Mas Women exhibit are now available online. Check it out here: www.studiolafoncette.tumblr.com
Zahra Gordon 
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