Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Symposium: Trinidad
Our day together
Our gathering and sharing involved provocations, discussion, exploration and sharing with approximately 30 participants exploring the roles of Women in Carnival.
We explored women’s role at play, in performance, and across various historical and imaginative creations of mas. At its core, Women in Carnival asks questions about the role of the female body and gender politics in carnival. We understand the term ‘Woman’ to be inclusive of people who use an array of binary, nonbinary, and often contested gender categories.
It was a day of discussion, performance and presentations led by the key Women in Carnival project participants, Eintou Springer, Adanna Kai Jones, Renella Alfred, and Amanda McIntyre.
The event was chaired by Emily Zobel Marshall, Cathy Thomas and (remotely) Adeola Dewis.
Participants
-
![Adanna Jones]()
Adanna Jones
Assistant Professor of Dance Studies / Bowdin College -
![Amanda T. McIntyre]()
Amanda McIntyre
Art Director at Pride Trinidad and Tobago -
![Eintou Springer]()
Eintou Springer
Poet and Playwright
Participants
-
![Adanna Jones]()
Adanna Jones
Assistant Professor of Dance Studies / Bowdin College -
![Amanda T. McIntyre]()
Amanda McIntyre
Art Director at Pride Trinidad and Tobago -
![Eintou Springer]()
Eintou Springer
Poet and Playwright -
![Renella Alfred]()
Renella Alfred
Whip Princess -
![zoe marshall]()
Professor Emily Zobel Marshall
Professor / School of Humanities and Social Sciences -
![Dr Cathy Thomas]()
Dr Cathy Thomas
Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing, University of California
- Sharing
Contributors were invited to share and reflect on their role in carnival and carnival artform. This took the form of short presentations – orally or through performance, poetry, dance or other artistic forms.- Session One: Eintou and Renella
- Session Two: Amanda and Adanna
- Film Footage Screening
Cathy and Emily shared footage of the filming they have done over the carnival period and discussed their experiences. - Round Table Discussion
Attendees were invited to respond to provocations and discuss key questions based on carnival, play, the female body, sexual and gender politics. Open discussion around theme, personal experiences, provocations and re-imaginations. - Renella’s Jab Jab Performance
...and post-workshop lime!
Participant biographies
Adanna Jones is an Assistant Professor of Dance and Dance Studies in the Department of Theater and Dance at Bowdoin College. She received her PhD in Critical Dance Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and her BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts—Rutgers University. Currently, her research and scholarship remain focused on Caribbean dance and identity politics within the Diaspora, paying particular focus to the rolling-hip dance known as winin’. Regarding her creative endeavors, she uses dance to both grapple with her research findings, as well as generating critical research questions. In addition to being a member of the Un/Commoning Pedagogies Collective, she is a current Steering Committee Member of the Coalition of Diasporan Scholars Moving. Both organizations aim to tackle, endure, unravel, and combat the pangs of white supremacy within academia and beyond.
Amanda T. McIntyre is the current Art Director at Pride Trinidad and Tobago. She was previously the Art Administrator at New Local Space (NLS), a contemporary visual art initiative based in Kingston, Jamaica. In 2020 McIntyre was part of the faculty for the La Pràctica artists Residency and an advisor for the NLS, Curatorial, and Art Writing Fellowship. In 2018 she founded She Right Collective, a Caribbean feminist advocacy network that hosts platforms for contemporary literature, visual arts, and performance.
In 2017 she was awarded the title Ole Mas Champion, by the Bocas Literary Festival and the National Carnival Commission of Trinidad and Tobago. In 2021 she was awarded a Futuress Coding Resistance Fellowship. Her art practice is mainly rendered through performance, costume design, photography, and film. McIntyre is the creator and performer of the Dolly Ma and Dolly Ma Brigitta Baby Doll masquerades.
Eintou Springer is a poet, playwright and cultural activist born in Santa Cruz, Trinidad. She is a founding member of various cultural organizations, including the Writers Union of Trinidad and Tobago, the National Drama Association of Trinidad and Tobago (NDATT), the Caribbean Theatre Guild and the Emancipation Support Committee. She was honoured as Poet Laureate of Port of Spain from 2002 to 2009.
She is the author of several books, including poetry collections, for both adults and children, as well as having her writings published in a range of publications and anthologies, including Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature (1979, edited by Roseann P. Bell, Bettye J. Parker and Beverly Guy-Sheftall), Daughters of Africa (1992, edited by Margaret Busby), and Moving Beyond Boundaries, vol. I. International Dimensions of Black Women's Writings (1995, edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie).
Springer has received acclaim for her work as a storyteller and dramatist. In 2011, her play How Anansi Bring the Drum celebrated the United Nations' International Year for People of African Descent (IYPAD) and was part of UNESCO's Youth Theatre Initiative. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic Eintou moved her storytelling pandemic online with a series titled 'Anansi and the Worldwide Web'. Her play Kambule is performed annually at the opening of Carnival celebrations and in 2021 was made into a short film directed by Maya Cozier.
Whip Princess
Daughter of the original whipmaster Ronald Alfred and Whip Queen Shalima Buckreedee.
Alfred Renella is from Trinidad and is a cultural performing artist,a teacher of the art, and a Keeper of the tradition Rope Jab.
Renella has been playing Rope Jab since birth.
She is a very open minded person.
"Carnival is my life it's who I am...
I am carnival!"
Renella Alfred - Whip Jap
We had the honour of working with Renella Alfred (@whip_princess_tt) and the Alfred family for our #womenincarnival project. They are the original rope jab family of Trinidad and the whole family play the mas. Renella’s mother Shalima was the first female Jab Jab player in Trinidad, and now her daughter is taking the mantle.
Amanda McIntyre: Dolly Ma Mas
Kambule 2022
The incredible KAMBULE performance written and directed by Eintou Springer.
The re-enactment of Kambule on Carnival Friday is symbolically the awakening of the Carnival spirit. The Kambule production recognises and celebrates the bois men and women, the warriors of the mas, who are the frontline in the confrontation with Captain Baker in the 1880s. Kambule reminds us that the Africans created a great deal despite enslavement.
In the Gayelle of the existence, the ancestors fought inch by inch to clear a space for the manifestations of their culture whether remembered or forged in the crucible of the environment to which they had been so forcibly transported. The KAMBULE was rooted in the remembered masking traditions of West Africa, and of course influenced by the new Caribbean environment.
KAMBULE - The spirit of carnival!
Excerpt from the Kambule performance
The rhythms of Kambule: drumming workshop
Learning the rhythms of Kambule at a drumming workshop with master drummer Xavier from the Kambule performers group.
