By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 12, 2022
PART II
Staged events like “Stink & Dutty” are nothing more than a reflection of carnivals, a mode of cultural and social production that attempts to overturn the assumptions of the dominant class.
Defenders or masqueraders always try to accomplish their desired goals through chaos and in-your-face bravado. In the process, they seek to stretch the boundaries of accepted traditions to discover a new sense of authenticity.
These issues represent a desire to achieve feelings of oneness, hence the refrain: “If yuh cut meh / Yuh go see blood / And if yuh squeeze meh / Yuh go feel d love; / We are a people under the sun / A nation, under God” (Blaxx, “Same Way.”) These sentiments echo Shylock’s defiant call to assert his humanity: “I am a Jew… If you pierce us, do no bleeding? If you tickle us, don’t we laugh? If you poison us, don’t we die? And if you wrong us, do we not take revenge?” (The Merchant of Venice).
Maurisa Findlay offers a rationale for youth immersion in these events: “There is a place for everyone in these ‘indecent’ sessions…no judgement, no division, no race cards. They are designed to make you refine, rethink and reimagine your personality; clients strategize the means to gain traction, attention and traction, by any means necessary. They opt for more facial lashes and a subtly decorated nipple cover. This is the perfect place to show off your newly healed, high-profile breast lift. Breast labor is common. What cannot be copied is your courage; the way you pose and purse your hyaluronic-filled lips.”
In this economy, investment in “self” is the main asset; return on investment means the relevance, importance and value of the shot. The distinguishing requirement in this transaction is commitment. To get optimal results, Findlay concludes, “Make sure your product is sharp, weird, bronzed, shiny, filtered and stubborn. When dividends pay in likes, followers, shares and views, you better sharpen your vocal identity, shine your physical attributes, hone your talent and cultivate your creativity.”
One’s content also comes from a noisy environment. She “is likely to find you going ‘low-low-down’ or the magnifying glass can hold you in the summer or on the tongue ring or in the city; whatever it takes to be recognized by your aesthetic/personal brand.” The race to popularity, sometimes fleeting, is urgent. “Sometimes getting seen and gaining a following means you have to go into sculpting baths to lift, capture, absorb, transfer absorb, fill, whiten, whiten, tighten and transplant. These are very expensive appointments that go to those in the cosmetic surgery business.”
These customers were not imported from another planet. They are born and bred Trinbagonians. They have been with us all along. We produced them over the years as we sought to maximize profits, manipulate markets, gain unfair advantages in commercial and government contracts, exploit those who stood in our way, and bleed those unable to defend themselves. They are rich and get richer as the poor get poorer. Jesus says: “You will always have the poor with you.”
Many of our creative people inhabit the fringe spaces of society. Wilson Harris calls it the “limbo-anancy syndrome”, which he describes in the following way: “The limbo dancer moves under a bar which gradually lowers until there is a mere crack of space through which he passes with eagle limbs spread out like a spider.”
Harris continues: “Limbo…was born on the slave ships of the Middle Passage. There was so little space that the slaves were twisted into human spiders… Limbo then reflects a certain kind of gateway or threshold of a new world and the displacement of a chain of miles. It is – in a way – the archetypal sea change that emanates from the Old Worlds, and it is legitimate, I think, to work with oblivion as a kind of shared phantom limb that has become a subconscious variable in West Indian theatre.”
He recalls seeing these performances in Guyana as a boy in the early 1930s. “Some of the performers danced on high legs like extended limbs, while others performed with eagles lying on the ground. In this way, the vague spider and the severed pillar of the gods were connected to the drums like bases and branches of lightning to the sound of thunder. (History, Fable and Myth)
It is surprising that the creators of these theme parties use embedded figures in the same way that Peter Minshall uses them in his portrayal of the carnival – while others sink into the mud like the devils of the Jouvert breakfast, to raise the sensitivity of these events. Harris emphasized that limbo “was rather the rebirth of a new corpus of sensibility that can translate and accommodate African and other legacies [East Indian and Asian, for example] within a new architecture of cultures”.
Advocates of these theme parties are trying to overturn accepted notions of respectability, recognition of one’s place in society, and other objectionable forms of social behavior that may have hindered our imaginative gifts. Promoters make a lot of money from these events with their ability to attract thousands of customers to an event, many of whom are sold out. The popularity of these events implies a dominant desire of patrons: “Uptown and ghetto / Feelin’ d tempo / Soca and kaiso / Is that the party / As soon as we get down / Fun is in the plan / We like to jam / Like Bim & Bam / Waving his hand, inside d band…”
The operative words in this context are affiliation, commitment and religion. Perhaps these defenders wish to believe: “We are a people under the sun / One nation, under God.”
