Where Panorama gone?

By Bukka Rennie
February 22, 2003

Bureaucrats do not see people. We have been trying for years to get Carnival planners, as good a bunch of bureaucrats as they may be, to understand that central to all planning is the question of people. How do you plan if there is no consideration for what people have indicated by way of what they indeed demonstrated and by the trends and free choices to which they seem to give preference?

Over the years, having been faced with the over-commercialisation of Carnival, the "Woodbrookifying" (my term) of mas' and the attendant quest to push "pan" out of the Monday and Tuesday parade, the people made Panorama, the preliminaries in particular, the focal point to their Carnival involvement.

In fact, the reverting to the "traditional single pan", ie Tripolians, was not merely about nostalgia, but was in fact a social statement about how negatively, in their view, Carnival was developing and about their desire to reclaim what they had struggled for for centuries.

Imagine pan, a distinct and unique musical form, that was developed as an integral part and handmaiden of mas, was now being shunted aside and degraded to the status of somebody's pumpkin-vine second-cousin.

Pan and the pan fraternity were now being accused of congesting the streets and blocking up the Queen's Park Savannah stage, delaying the flow of tens of thousands of the sequined-bikini idiots, these overnight Carnival parvenus.

As we said before, these people represent the tendency which was first projected by the elites who left their in-house disguised Carnival balls to cluster on the balconies above the streets to observe, overwhelmed by the creativity of Carnival theatre below, then later to came down onto lorries and trucks, then onto the street itself, though roped off to prevent contamination from the plebs, then, finally, at last, to remove the ropes in order to take over the whole damn show and add nothing to the process but glittering frills devoid of any art, satire, parody or portrayal.

Tripolians was a definite statement against that trend. It was about reclaiming that free spirit of Carnival, about people being freely involved, undeterred by any boundaries of wealth, colour and station in life.

But how did the bureaucrat planners respond to the statement from Tripolians in their planning of Carnival? Did they attempt to unravel the deep meanings of the Tripolians phenomenon. Never! They responded like true bureaucrats.

They formalised the single pan bands and put them on stage in competition. They are yet to comprehend that the Tripolians phenomenon was demanding a complete re-definition, overhauling and re-engineering of Carnival from top to bottom.

Bureaucrats see what they want to see. They never see the human condition of people. And the fact that it is the human condition of people that propels people to demonstrate, even more than articulate, the way forward for the future.

Some say that bureaucrats see only dollars and cents. But how so? If they really want profits, the ideal approach will be to market professionally what the people demand, and to stop begging the State for subventions to cover transport costs, etc, and demand instead a percentage of the $450 million that accrues to T&T annually as a result of pan, calypso and mas.

But what are the indicators for the professional marketing of Panorama? Panorama prelims was conceived as a pan on the move affair. That is its marketability. Planners have to start with that. In 1963, there were green light stations where judges were placed along the "bull track" and on the stage.

Each band moved along ensuring that it played the complete piece at each green light and then crossed the stage, moving. By 1965-66 as many as 84 bands came down the "bull track", East to West, and crossed the stage in what would be considered today as "miracle time".

That on-the-move presentation of music is the core value of pan prelims. Pan the instrument was designed to present music on the move. Every new invention in the "earlies" had to be tested on the road. Road worthiness was the value. Ask the pioneers!

Back in the '60's there were bleachers then on either side of the "bull track", erected for Monday and Tuesday mas parade, that people occupied then during the prelims and for which they could be made to pay today. But what do the bureaucrats of Pan Trinbago and NCC do?

They put the pan prelims in the various panyards which is tantamount to removing the Carnival nature of prelims, limiting it to being a home-based concert and depriving the masses of their key Carnival involvement.

Transport costs have been cut, they claim. And we said that they would not stop there. And they haven't. Now it's on to "killing" the "bull track" concept altogether. On Sunday last, at the national semi-finals, everyone was asking "Whey de Panorama gone?" People in disgust left the Savannah in droves. Many demanding that protests and petition be launched immediately to save the "bull track".

And as if that is not enough, even the music seems to have been affected. Ray Holman is right when he said there is very little new creativity coming forward. We have always maintained that in terms of arranging there are only two or three "authentic voices". Ray was one. In fact even up to present time everything coming out of the West reeks of Ray.

On Sunday last it was a crying shame to hear a big band from the West attempting to "out-Bradley Bradley" and one from the East likewise attempting to be "more All Stars that All Stars".

Come on, taking musical idioms from All Stars bass lines and putting that on your cellos, amongst other things, will not hide copy-catting. Look fellahs, let's strive to be authentic and stay true to ourselves. It is the one thing bureaucrats never do. Yet, it's the only way to save Carnival!