I was not sure if I liked Brian MacFarlane's offering for Carnival 2011, when I saw the costumes down at Mobs 2 last Friday evening in Chaguaramas (because it creeped me out a little bit) but I was sure I was looking at next year's band of the year.
Don't know if its the colour scheme of silver and black with some white, but the fantastic or should that be phantasmic shapes of his Humanity, Circle of Life had such a dark perfection that he is right about one thing, it really is as he has said "his most creative and inspiring presentation to date".
And, in that one presentation, ladies and gentlemen, the sheep have been separated from the goats in the search in this column for the shape of Carnival 2011. Having been to the 2011 presentations of most of the major bands, I feel that I can say I have seen nothing to challenge it with the exception of Peter Samuel's presentation of Skullduggery which introduced an element of punk and something different into the mas. But Samuel's mas really needs numbers to make it work on the road and some of his costumes need reworking for the concepts to better resonate and that's another story. But the fuzz from the feathers has cleared and there is MacFarlane and there is the rest consisting mostly of the hordes of beads and feathers.
What remains to be seen is how masqueraders will deal with the costumes on the hot carnival days because they seem to be on the cumbersome side, although MacFarlane gives the assurance that they are very light to carry, but as previous presentations have shown the MacFarlane masqueraders don't seem to mind that. And despite the influences traditional and new from which he obviously continues to draw, with this work MacFarlane seems to be working out a statement that is his.
The sections carry names such as Birth, Baptism, Love, Time, Prayer, Knowledge, Joy and Sorrow, Marriage, Passion, Work, Good and Evil, Giving and Receiving, Freedom and The Farewell
By Deborah John
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