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Over the last 35 years, carnival in Notting Hill has grown into a spectacular event, remarkable for the richness, diversity and innovation of its arts. On the last weekend in August, London's African and Caribbean British, together with people from across the world, come together on the streets of Notting Hill to participate in the music, movement and theatre of carnival. It is a street presentation of characters and stories and all the visual ingenuity and wonder of 'mas' itself - the Caribbean-derived masquerade.
While carnival is a time of partying and celebration, its historical roots remain important to both its aesthetic and its significance. Notting Hill Carnival developed from the Caribbean model, drawing particular inspiration from carnival in Trinidad, itself a festival influenced by many cultures.
The Spanish ruled in Trinidad from the arrival of Columbus in 1498 to the capture of the island by the British in 1797. In 1793, the Spanish invited immigration from their French allies. The French brought with them their custom of masquerade balls. The African Trinidadians maintained their own dancing and music-making, and while the plantation owners danced and paraded as satirical versions of their slave servants, the slaves danced their own dances and sang their own songs and in turn mimicked their masters in parodies of their own that were soon to develop into popular carnival characters. For with Emancipation under British rule in the 1830s, the ex-slaves came onto the streets - previously forbidden to them - and Caribbean carnival was born.
It is this strong African influence that has shaped carnival in the Caribbean and in turn Britain. The visual aesthetic is also influenced by the Indian palette and textiles. Indentured Asian Indian labourers, introduced to Trinidad from the 1840s, brought to the island their cuisine, religions and festivals. By the early 20th century, the influence of Indian textiles and ornament was evident in carnival costumes, and continues to be so today.
Out
of this World. Designed by Clary Salandy.
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The Notting Hill Carnival grew out of several street events and carnival dances. Notting Hill was predominantly settled by Trinidadians and others from the eastern Caribbean in the early post-war years, when West Indians were invited to come to assist in rebuilding Britain. In the hostile environment of the mid-sixties, when the first simple carnival celebration took place, participants remembered carnival's origin, and the significance and celebration of the right to walk the streets. More than 35 years later, Notting Hill Carnival is a claiming of space in the most spectacular way imaginable.
At the heart of the carnival is the 'mas'. The mas is not merely a costume; a costume is only a costume until you step out and perform. Months before carnival, across London, mas bands (costumed groups) decide on a theme and commission designs for costumes. A band may be satirical and mock a recent political event; it may celebrate Caribbean life or legends; or it may represent key figures from fairytales or the Bible.
Each mas band will have from 50 to 500 players, and there are many bands. Up to 3,000 and more players dance the route in a three-mile circle around the streets of Notting Hill. Wings soar, sequins shimmer, decorated banners stream in the wind. Designing for carnival has particular requirements. Given the street location - so essential to the historical significance of carnival - designs must be visible through the height, colours and drape of materials and the reflective quality of the ornaments. The bands compete for prizes, which ensures continual innovation. Cane, wire and aluminium rods are used in constructing wings and extensions to the body, while papier-mâché and above all cloth are used to flesh out structures and give expanse to wings and banners. Finally paints, dyes, braids, feathers, trimmings, mirrors as well as stitching and appliqué work are used to add detail and enhance outlines.
Clary Salandy, a prize-winning designer of Trinidadian origin, is noted for her use of large expanses of cloth and a distinctive palette. Fishing rods provide the flexible extensions that create towering wings, extended cloaks and hand-held shield-like screens. Her 1998 costume 'Colours of the Wind' illustrates her hallmark use of flexible rods to carry vast silky wings, hand-painted in sharp pinks, reds and yellows. When you see the player dance, you see how the costume moves.
In the traditional dance step of carnival, known as 'chipping', the feet stay close to the ground and as each foot moves forward to the beat, the hip on the same side swings forward. The alternate swing of the pelvis echoes up though the whole body and ripples out through extended arms and hands. Chipping goes back to the movement vocabulary which enslaved people brought from Africa, and Salandy knows how to make cloth echo and participate in this dance step.
The
Carnival Queen. Trinidad and Tobago band 2000.
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Salandy uses colour in two distinct ways. She often uses bold combinations of colour, for example giving a broad orange border to contrast with a bright blue cloak. When several players are grouped together wearing the same costumes, the moving blocks of contrasting colour magnify the impact. With individuals and larger costumes, some of her most exquisite work has come from painting cloth. 'Colours of the Wind' is a prime example, the colours bleeding a little to emphasise the height of the wings, and subtly applied matching sequins catch the light and intensify the pigment.
There is a traditional grandeur to a full-length circular skirt, supported on a wire frame, decorated with appliqué work, braid and reflective ornament. The extensive use of braid and light-reflecting decoration and the broad, bright palette, such as that used in Ali Pretty's work, reflect the influence of Asian Indian textiles. A mas band inspired to play an African theme may use African cloth, such as Ghanaian and Malian mud cloth or Kenyan kangas, or more usually copies of these, to bring a sense of authenticity to their mas.
The King and Queen costumes, as the biggest and most spectacular costumes in a band are termed, will often have large arching structures, mounted on a backpack, and rising in two or three tiers behind and above the player. A fine cotton or nylon cloth is then spread tightly from section to section on these frames and glued or sewn to the wire and aluminium. Then onto the flat expanses of cloth are stitched hundreds and hundreds of fine soft feathers. These are arranged to form bold, distinctive patterns according to the tribal customs that a particular band is representing. The final effect is one of symmetrical design, combining a sense of solidity with softness. Distinct colour contrasts further heighten the appeal, drama and visibility of this mas.
Carnival provides a rich resource for the study of textile arts. Whether cloth is used unadorned and in a single colour, or patterned with appliqué, encrusted in sequins and edged with braid, whether it is dyed, painted or cut into strips that swing and swirl, it is always dramatic. The carnival art form is continually developing with innovative textiles and absorbing fresh cultural influences. Designers look for new ways to use cloth to enhance and complement movement and visual impact and above all to create awe, delight and wonder on the streets of Notting Hill.
Ali Pretty graduated in 1984 and immediately set off for India, to work in performing arts. On her return she trained in batik and developed a technique for painting silk for costumes, flags and decorative banners. She was invited to work for Peter Minshall, the outstanding Trinidadian carnival designer, and took her silk painting skill to the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics. She designed prize-winning costumes for Notting Hill, with South Connections band, in the late 1990s and now has her own company, Kinetika. Together with the Kinetika team she creates strongly visual street performance in towns and cities across Britain.
Flight, 1999. Designed by Ali Pretty for South Connections.
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I asked Ali about her painting technique.
R:
You use a mix of painting/dyeing processes?
A: I make use of batik skills sometimes, using
wax, particularly where the design demands colour
separation, but once you get into batik you've got
to iron it, dry-clean it and so on. When I paint on
silk I'm exploring the special qualities of blending.
R:
You do have some very distinct ideas about colour.
Are you conscious of the kinds of colour mixes you
use?
A: Everybody asks me this. Maybe I don't see
as much in it as everybody else does. People are always
suggesting different influences, but I feel it's quite
intuitive. There are certain colours that give you
energy or make you feel a particular way. A lot of
people say they don't understand how I get the colours
so strong, stronger than other people. I wash out
the cloth and the colour stays fixed.
R:
The processes you've described result in these extraordinary
expanses of very mobile silk, in sharp, bright colours
which mingle in very dramatic ways. The way you were
speaking just now, you seemed to be suggesting that
there is a kind of meaning that you can communicate
through colour.
A: Yes. In 1999 I co-designed 'Flight' for
South Connections carnival band. It started very dark,
with the Raven: blue-black. Such a colour is very
unusual for carnival, but I was very clear that I
wanted that blue. Another thing we did was red flags
with provocative images or text. It was a section
about protest, but I hadn't realised how powerful
the red flag is. When we were on the road at Notting
Hill, on top waving the red flags, we got cheers all
the way round.
Then
in the band that we did the year before, Call the
Rain, we used more subtle colours, such as rusty browns
and antique gold. It looked very rich - not colours
you would expect in carnival. People often associate
carnival with bright primary colours. The Queen, representing
Mercy and Forgiveness, was a risk. The player didn't
like the design until she wore it because it was so
pale. I did it in lilac and grey and I was trying
to get close to white on white. It had a Bengali pattern
and I did a wash on it - it was quite unexpected and
very delicate. Some people might have questioned it,
but for me it was portraying a certain character.
If it had been dyed pink it wouldn't have worked
for the pattern and the qualities of the character.
R:
So the way you use colours, the mixing and combination
of them, is evocative of particular qualities. The
Raven had to have that really dramatic blue-black
quality. You are very conscious of matching the colour
to the function of the mas's character.
A: And the thing about the Raven was that its
wings were not solid, they were of paper. We had a
silhouette and were playing with light and dark, which
is what that character is also about.
R:
When we spoke earlier you said, 'For me it's all cloth
and fibreglass'. Can you talk a little about how you
combine painted silk with fibreglass?
A: Yes, the fibreglass rod enables you to create
sculptures with cloth. You can get fantastic shapes.
The flexibility of the fibreglass affects the movement
of the cloth and the way it curls. You can go on creating
different effects with these two materials. And now
I am particularly excited about fishing rods - because
it's the fishing rods that are holding up the
costumes. You know you can get up to 6-metre fishing
rods? The band just goes up in the air!
R:
And do you design with light effects in mind?
A: Well yes, that's the point: silk is translucent.
It also has a sheen on it and reflects light. If you
paint silk and then print onto it, then the print
is opaque and the silk is translucent and you get
the contrast.
R: Thank you, Ali.
Clary Salandy grew up in Trinidad and came to the UK to study theatre design. At art school her interest in Caribbean carnival developed and she established contacts within the London carnival community. She designed her first band for Notting Hill Carnival in 1985, and together with technical director Michael Ramdeen set up Mahogany Carnival Band in 1989. Mahogany Arts is now a successful business, taking on commissions for costume design and production commercially, for carnivals and other events. They have taken carnival to Dubai and Singapore and made study visits, focusing on festival arts, to India and Brazil.
Shadow over Tiananmen Square. Designed by Clary Salandy
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I asked Clary about the role of a carnival designer.
R:
In your view, does the designer have responsibilities
to tradition or to innovation or to the particular
community involved?
C: You have to be able to do the new while
not destroying the old. Carnival is always telling
you something. It's a language - if you can understand
the language then you can read carnival. I try to
make my language work for different people. There
will be things in the band that some people may really
dislike, things that are actually not for them but
for a granny or a little child. Then there is something
deep, so that somebody just has to look to see the
symbolism and read the layers of meaning - in terms
of the symbols, the form, the colours - and make sense
of it all. In that creative frame of mind you can
see it and understand it..
R:
So what kind of things do you generally bring out
on the road?
C: I usually try to sense what is happening
politically or emotionally around me and beyond. For
example, this year it might be 11 September. I think
I might have to do something on that because it was
so important it changed the world. I should not ignore
it. How we do that without upsetting people is quite
important, but I am going to have to find a way to
do that. There was one year when there was a lot of
discussion about the reefs - in the Caribbean and
in Australia - and about saving animals from extinction.
So that year I designed 'Out of This World' - that
was the theme of the band. People read the band on
different levels. In itself that is holding on to
tradition.
R:
Could you tell me a little more about themes, perhaps
take a particular example. How is the theme presented
in the costume?
C: 'Shadow over Tiananmen Square' is a particularly
good example. We had designed a completely different
band and then this massacre took place and I thought,
hey, I'm not going to ignore that. Immediately I had
this vision of this shadow, this thing overshadowing
the people. I did the design thinking about the immovable
nature of the regime in China which wasn't able to
be modernised - that's where the black and white came
from, while the mob are colourful, different and new;
you're looking for things people can pick up like
that. I thought of the black and white squares as
Chinese chequers, the square being a rigid form. I
saw it as being manipulated by the colour - the people.
So the black and white figure was the one that was
overpowering and overshadowing. People responded to
him in very different ways. People called him Fu Man
Chu or Chiang Chai Chek. Everybody had different names
for him - they knew he was a damned angry man whoever
he was! He is a puzzle and a patchwork of things that
could be Chinese.
R:
How does a costume become a mas?
C: The difficulty for me is that it's always
a mas - it's never a costume. I never see it without
seeing where it's going or how it's animated - it
always has inherent movement. When the player moves,
the fabric, the structure almost breathes. Every material
you use is going to add to the movement. It's a marriage
between the performer and myself - it's my concept
which he or she is bringing to life. You have to use
the right materials. There's another sense you get
from a big character when it's played well - it's
really powerful.
R:
Your big costumes create in the spectator a sense
of wonder.
C: A mas is glorifying. It's like a trophy
or a tribute. I read once how people who make the
masks in Africa have to be initiated because they
are transforming God's materials. That stuck in my
mind and made me realise the importance of what we
are doing. There is respect in mas-making, and the
knowledge and intuition in a designer comes from a
long initiation.
R: Thank you, Clary.
As Principal Lecturer in Performing Arts at Middlesex University, Ruth Tompsett introduced Carnival Studies to the BA Performing Arts programme and established a Carnival Archive. She has lectured on carnival in universities and arts projects in the UK, USA, South Africa and the Caribbean. In 1997 she organised 'Catch the Spirit', a Carnival Arts Conference at the Museum of London. Ruth is a carnival adviser for London Arts and is a member of the Greater London Authority's Carnival Review Group.
This article is from Embroidery, Volume 53 No.5, © Ruth Tompsett.