Description
I remember one J’ouvert when I was with Callaloo Company and we played mud. I was on the mud truck distributing mud to all the band members so they could paste each other with mud as they danced through the streets. I remember feeling random hands from co-workers slathering more mud on my legs, arms, back, belly as the morning wore on and the sun began to rise. I remember throwing mud out the truck as people jumped and danced like it was a rain bath. I felt like Mother Earth! It was the most natural earthy feeling I’ve ever had.
J’ouvert is the ‘opening’ of Carnival. It is the thing that signals that it is now officially time to play mas’ in T&T. It starts in the wee hours of the morning and goes til 8 or 9am. People meet in a large band and dance through the streets to loud sweet music covering each other from head to toe in mud, or cocoa or even paint.
This piece represents the sweet chaos of Trinidad & Tobago’s dirty mas.
See the other paintings in the Mas’ series: Ole Mas’and Pretty Mas’
