Cyrese Pounall and her team recognized for designing with Ontario Science Centre 'Innovation in Mas' Award
Thousands witness the kaleidoscope of colour as costumed revelers descend on Lakeshore Ave. for the annual Toronto Caribbean Carnival (TCC).
Very few, however, are privileged to see the behind the scenes hard work that go into the regalia production.
In 2010, the Ontario Science Centre established an award to acknowledge and celebrate designers’ ingenuity and creativity. The candidates are chosen from the TCC King and Queen categories.
Cyrese Pounall and her team of Nicole Brand, welder Andrew Ross and Arnold Hughes & Associates, who designed and produced ‘Nevaeh, the Heavenly Queen’, was this year’s Innovation in Mas’ award winner.
The winning costume is displayed at the Science Centre for a period.
Portrayed by Brand who played mas’ for Toronto Revellers, Nevaeh (the word heaven spelled backwards) is the keeper of the keys to the realms of Carnival Heaven. As you hear the faint rhythms of soca and calypso, she greets you with mas’ legends from the past. The many jeweled faces on her skirt represent these legends. Her pearly gates represent the skies and the heavens declaring the glory of God and carnival and the beautiful bright pink and sequined wings represent the Spirit World and all its luminous beauty and love for humanity.
Female Queen runner-up Nicole Brand in the winning Ontario Science Centre ‘Innovation In Mas’ costume (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
The illustrious pink feathers symbolize her connection to the physical world and her unconditional love, friendship and hopes for inner peace and bacchanal for humankind and the bejeweled patterns represent the cosmos and the universe’s unique and endless possibilities.
“From a visual point of view, not only was the costume pretty but it brought a different kind of movement,” said Pounall who dedicated the award to bandleader Arnold Hughes who died in April 2020. “The masquerader has to work a lot harder to get it to move. We found a way to make the mas itself dance as well as the person wearing it while maintaining beauty within that. Everything we used had some type of movement and something to add to the costume.”
Brand, who has been playing mas’ with Arnold Hughes since age five, said the costume was easy to carry.
“This was probably the lightest and it was because of the team’s innovation in putting it together,” she said. “On the wings where there was the feather piece, I played a costume similar to that a few years ago and the wind smacked it. This year, a hole was inserted into that piece for the air to pass through. We have come a long way from a time when the costumes were heavy, stiff and without some of the innovation we see today. I have a tattoo on my chest covering a big gash from a costume scrape.”
Born to Jamaican immigrants, Pounall is the goddaughter of Hughes’ daughter, Kathleen Noel.
“I grew up in his mas’ camp,” she said. “This year was about finishing what he started and carrying on his legacy. The year he died was supposed to be his last in carnival and he wanted to go out in big way and finish with a bang.”
Before passing, Hughes – who was honoured at the TCC Ball in 2012 -- designed the Junior and Senior Queen costumes for the 2020 Toronto Caribbean Carnival that was cancelled because of the pandemic. Toronto Revellers’ Angelina Leach, who wore the costume he started to design, was the Junior Queen winner this year.
“He left his drawings and it was my job to breathe life into them,” Pounall noted. “I feel like we were able to accomplish that and make him really proud.”
The late Arnold Hughes (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Toronto Revellers had a theme, ‘Coming to America’, for 2020 before the pandemic struck.
“We had to find another theme because of COVID as that one was no longer relevant,” said Pounall who was a Tribal Carnival Queen contestant on three occasions. “When the theme for this year became ‘Bon Voyage’, I had to become very creative in terms of being true to that theme. Just like Grandpa (Arnold Hughes), I am not about presenting something and slapping a name on it. We came up with the Carnival Queen of Heaven because we know he is enjoying mas’ wherever he is as he was a Carnival man.”
Brand, the 2019 Queen, said Pounall was the glue of the team.
“Cyrese had us sweating,” she said. “We had almost 2,500 hand cut patterns. The Science Centre judges came to the mas’ camp about a week before the parade and they got to see the pieces that are part of the puzzle that is the final costume.”
Nicole Brand (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Led by head judge Walter Stoddard who is a Science Centre Researcher/Programmer, the others were Vishnu Ramcharan who is the Science Centre Visitor & Community Engagement Co-ordinator, Visual Artist/Sculptor Charmaine Lurch and Science Centre educator Teressa Black.
Judging the designs this year, said Lurch, was challenging.
“There was not a lot of innovation in the sense of technical things,” she said. “Sourcing material was an issue because of the pandemic, so we had to move to what was the most innovative thing. The level of detail, the layering and honouring someone who made an immeasurable contribution to the carnival were the ideas that, together, made the Toronto Revellers Queen costume the most innovative for me. They were other ones way ahead going into the stage show, but when we saw them perform, they didn’t do the things we were told they would do. If it does not come to fruition, it doesn’t stand out.”
An Ordained Minister and engineer, Stoddard has been the Head Judge from the inception.
“The winning costume, that was designed and worked on by three generations of people, stood out for us,” he pointed out. “When we heard them talk about legacy and developing skill sets that get passed down to other generations, we paid attention. It was not just a one-way flow of information. There was something evident in the way that that design process was being carried on. The youngest and newest was able to influence the design as well. It was not just here comes an apprentice who will learn. It was you have unique perspectives and skills that are permitted to add to change and redirect the flow of the design.”
About a week before the parade, the judges visit the mas’ camps to observe the assembly prior to the stage appearance and engage in pre-competition conversations with designers and bandleaders.
The dialogue revolves around problem solving, thematic interpretation, aspiration, inspiration, material innovation, mobility and collaboration. This year, it was extended to include coping with COVID.
“As we kept doing this, we also were learning about what actually goes on and through these conversations, the questions and criteria were added to and shaped by the mas’ practitioners,” said Ramcharan. “The bulk of the scoring is based on the interviews and by the time we get to Lamport Stadium for the King & Queen show, we add to what we see which is the result of their work and testing. The last thing we do is visit them in the assembly area on the night of the show to wish them well and provide any last minute assistance they need. Even though it is a competition, our aim is to bring people together around science and technology.”
Ramcharan created the Innovation in Mas’ Award initiative.
“I believe that science is not just in the labs,” he said. “It belongs to everyone and all cultures have different ways of viewing things. There is a lot of science and technology involved in taking an image that is in someone’s head, drawing that out on a piece of paper and then making a costume for competition and to be displayed on the road. I think the time had come to acknowledge this work for the non-Caribbean population so they can see and understand the other side of carnival. Most times, they only see people shaking and dancing. There is so much more to carnival.”
An Innovation in Mas’ Special Recognition Award was presented to SugaCayne led by husband and wife Dwayne and Candice Dixon for the costume ‘Strange Fruit’ portrayed by Samira Emmanuel.
Award-winning storyteller Rita Cox said the award is significant.
“It recognizes the creativity, skills, artistry and technical versatility of the art of making mas’ that not even the artists and artisans themselves seem to appreciate,” said the retired librarian. “This has raised their awareness of the importance and distinctiveness of their art and I am sure will foster greater pride and purpose in their future work.”
This was the last year that the judging was done in just the King & Queen categories.
Beginning next year, bandleaders/designers can submit any costume they would like to enter in the competition.
