Journalist Gladys Quesada brings us stories about the celebration of Carnival in the Caribbean and Latin America nations. teleSUR
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00:00 [Music]
00:13 Hi, hello, welcome back to Tell Us Your English and also to Carnival Times. This is a space
00:18 that goes to all the carnivals in the Caribbean and Latin American countries right now. I'm Gladys
00:23 Quezada, I'm your host in this space and right now I'm at a display and an exposition here in
00:30 the National Carnival Commission in Savannah Park in Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. This
00:35 place goes to all the history of the carnival, the steel pans, the queens and kings of the carnival
00:42 and more, but we will talk about that later. Right now we go to Oruro in Bolivia. There the mine
00:48 workers are having a homage, a carnival homage to the deity that protects them underground. Let's see.
00:55 It is midnight at the San Jose mine on the outskirts of the city of Oruro. A group of
01:03 workers from the Corazón de Jesús Cooperative have been on vigil to pay tribute to the mine's uncle.
01:09 What we give to the uncle of the mine is this. For what reason? Because day by day, thanks to him,
01:17 this is what sustains us out here. So our retribution is through that. He is the owner
01:24 of the veins. We ask him with all respect, day by day, that we do well, that he gives us good ore,
01:32 good veins, with all respect. We are coming into your house so that you take care of us,
01:37 because in mining you never know if you will go in and go out. A white table is offered with
01:45 a kind of cookies made with starch and sugar. With the figures of what is asked for wealth,
01:52 goods, health, and llama are offered, the heart of which is thrown into the holes where the uncle resides.
01:59 At carnival, it is the uncle's birthday. We give offerings from all the workers so that the uncle
02:08 takes care of us in the mine. But also, the uncle will give them more ore. It has been our custom
02:15 for years. Before, Spanish colonialists and the Anagenos people were farmers or hunters,
02:22 and worshipped the sun, the moon, the wind, and the hail. And they were forced to work as miners
02:30 and accept the Catholic religion, their God, and saints. These natives, turned into miners,
02:41 decided to make their own God, and with the wood and clay from the mine, they made a small statue,
02:52 but in human shape, just like the virgins and saints above. With the difference that they put
03:02 a piece of pure mineral as the heart, and with that they made the image.
03:07 In all the mines, there is the uncle, in different parts and sides. Almost naked, he exhibits his
03:17 masculinity. He is invited to cigarettes, which he consumes immediately, and also alcohol. And
03:23 in his company, alcohol is drunk and cigarettes are smoked as well. Miners leave him jocalive
03:30 sweets, requests for welfare. The Spaniards and the Spanish church that was above said,
03:37 "The God you have below in the mine is not God, but the devil."
03:43 At almost 4,000 meters above sea level, in the undercuts, conditions are extreme,
03:50 with temperatures ranging from intense cold to heat up to 40 degrees Celsius. Air is
03:56 scarce and is piped in from the outside. Mining in these mines dates back more than 500 years,
04:04 and they continue to produce lead, silver, and tin.
04:12 These pictures showcase not only the queens and kings of the carnival here in Trinidad and Tobago,
04:19 they are also pictures of the crafting people, the common ones, who give the splendor of the
04:24 sequins, the feathers, the colors, the costumes, and the makeup. Yes, they make possible every
04:30 edition of the carnival. And now we are going to other carnival in Latin American countries.
04:36 This is the case of Colombia. In Barranquilla, Hernan Toar brings us a story about how the
04:41 people in Magdalena is showcasing their dance abilities and traditions. Let's see.
04:46 In Barranquilla's pre-carnival, some places have been arranged to set the scene for this
04:54 festival with famous figures of the local folklore. So the Malecon of the Magdalena
04:58 River retakes its importance also as a cultural and historical provider.
05:04 It represents a lot because it was one of the most important ways for the other dance from
05:09 the riverside towns to reach the carnival of Barranquilla, and I will be adapted as the carnival
05:15 song. The tradition and joy of the patrimonial dancers reaches this place with the Magdalena
05:22 River as a witness and give account of the cultural and artistic history that retains
05:27 the liberating deeds. The dance of the Paloteo is a warrior dance where we show that the sticks
05:36 are the weapons that our soldiers took to fight. So instead of us taking weapons,
05:41 we take some sticks in symbolism of the dance of the Paloteo.
05:45 The indigenous bread dance is a tradition that has lasted from generation to generation for
05:52 more than 60 years, and it has been spreading the memory of the indigenous communities
05:57 that inhabit the Caribbean region, their dances and attire.
06:01 I started to go to the carnival of Barranquilla when I was seven years old, and my mom was the
06:12 one who arrived in the city when the lady Dora Tomás Meléndez came from Senegal Magdalena,
06:18 because the dance was brought by the Senegal Rosario on the sides of Manpos. Then the lady
06:24 wanted to take part in the carnival, but she didn't know how to do it. And my mother,
06:29 as she was a woman from Barranquilla who liked the joy of folklore, her name was Marie Gómez,
06:35 was the one who pushed for this to happen.
06:38 All this is a preamble to the formal opening of the carnival that will bring the best of
06:48 the folklore tradition of the Colombian Caribbean for four days in a row.
06:52 Usually we think that the carnival just comes and goes, and it is just celebration,
07:07 the lights, the feathers, the dances. But the carnival is much more. It's also history,
07:12 and it's also a social archive of what is happening in every country. In this case,
07:17 we went to the Cambule, a celebration that mixes the carnival history and roots
07:22 with the social issues of this island. Let's see.
07:25 Just before carnival at 4am on Friday morning, a humble block in the center of Porto, Spain,
07:35 in Piccadilly Greens becomes a stage. In spite of the darkness of the early morning,
07:40 the audience crowds the bleacher steps. The streets becomes the stage, the actors wait
07:46 for their moment. The play begins. This is the Cambule.
07:50 Members of the Ida Kera group follow the script written by Anto Pearl Springer and staged for the
08:07 first time in 2004. Over the course of two decades, effects, contrasts, arrangements have been added,
08:16 but the plot is the same. The slave uprising of 1881 against the mistreatment of the English
08:22 masters. Those who besides subjecting them to work without rest, deprive them of celebrating
08:29 the carnival. On that remote date, also before the light of day, not a few died in order to
08:36 gain dignity. Their names, although unknown, are not forgotten. Firstly, we acknowledge that
08:43 we are only here today celebrating Trinidad Carnival in the way that we celebrate our
08:48 carnival with all of these lovely traditional forms because of the efforts of our ancestors.
08:54 If those persons, those sick men, those jammets, they do fight, they do stand up to the police and
09:00 say no, we want to celebrate in the way we want to celebrate, then all of this wouldn't have been.
09:07 So it's about acknowledging that. The relevance of doing it in the streets is in the streets
09:13 that happen. It's not just a play that was just thought of by somebody. It is our own creative
09:19 representation of a piece of history that actually happened. So doing it in the streets is part of
09:25 the ritual of acknowledging all the blood that was shed for us to be able to have our carnival,
09:31 acknowledging all of the sweat that was shed, all of the tears, all of the fighting,
09:35 all of the people who died for us to be able to have the carnival that we have today.
09:40 The term "Camboulé" is a popular adaptation of the French phrase that means "burnt canes"
09:46 because the beginning of the carnival coincided with the end of the sugar season when the cane
09:52 fields were burnt to eliminate pests and clear the vegetable waste. This celebration derived in
09:59 the Black Carnival with a humble origin. For this reason, there are no grandiloquences in the
10:05 production that recreates it. It values our center and the typical customs that characterize the time,
10:12 the live music with the African drums as fundamental base. Behind it, the theory and the academy.
10:20 We do a lot of research on the time. So of course, because we are talking about people who
10:29 didn't write their histories down, they're not very present in the history books and they're
10:36 certainly not present in the newspapers of the time. And so we have to dig into the oral histories,
10:42 we have to dig into the songs of the time and that sort of thing. Dawn breaks in Port of Spain and
10:48 with the daylight, the play ends and now we'll go to schools and community centers. The actors
10:55 said goodbye to the late night audience that then joins a small parade of typical carnival characters
11:01 that are already a symbol of the Caribbean and Trinidadian identity. Characters that will
11:08 accompany the carnival from beginning to end and then start again and wait for another morning of
11:14 Cambly. For Telesur English, as a special envoy from Trinidad and Tobago, Gladys Quezada.
11:24 Here in Trinidad and Tobago, the story goes like this. The white colonial masters banned the use
11:30 of drums made of wood and other materials. So the slaves find alternatives in utensils from the
11:37 kitchen and also this kind of containers that had an evolution and today they are one of the national
11:44 symbols and also one of the authentic and native instruments. This is the steel pan, this is also
11:50 one of the ways that percussion is done here in Trinidad and Tobago. Right now, let's explore about
11:56 other traditions and other stories but let's go to Pernambuco in Brazil. There is a story
12:02 about how the carnival is celebrated. Let's see. On the edge of the sugar plantations in the sleepy
12:10 town of Pau D'Alho on the outskirts of greater Recife, Pernambuco, one of Brazil's oldest
12:15 frevo organizations, the Clube dos Lenhadores or Lumberjack Club, prepares for its 117th carnival.
12:24 The frevo is a very seductive music. The carnival club works with street frevo,
12:34 when it goes out to the streets, when it does the dances and it also composes its own frevo,
12:41 which are its own hymns. The hymn of the lumberjack is a very old hymn, more than 100 years old.
12:50 Frevo is a genre of music normally only played during carnival, but has its roots in waltzes
12:56 and polkas that were popular in the late 1800s but considered too slow to dance to in carnival.
13:02 Local musicians sped up the tempo and played the European-influenced pop melodies over
13:06 Afro-Brazilian dance rhythms. In the past, we used to play more freely. We felt more protected.
13:15 Today, we have to be careful in our daily lives, with who we are playing with, with who we are on our side,
13:20 because in the world today there is a lot of evil, and today we play more reservedly.
13:25 But don't stop playing, because the carnival in Pau D'Ali is one of the best carnivals.
13:29 While carnivals in other regions of Brazil have been commodified to the point where only rich
13:33 people can afford to get near the bands, Pernambuco's grand old frevo clubs, like Lenhadores,
13:39 keep the tradition of carnival alive as a free festival made by and for the working class.
13:45 It's not that we want it to end, it's that the people of Pau D'Ali miss something.
13:53 They got on Lenhadores. You can see here today in our rehearsal that there are a lot of people
13:59 who love this club, so we will never think that this will end.
14:05 Brian Muir, Telassur, Pau D'Ali, Pernambuco.
14:14 And like this we say goodbye for now to these carnival times, but before we bid our farewells
14:21 we want to thank the National Carnival Commission here in Trinidad and Tobago,
14:25 and also to their archives and experts that put this display on and allow us to do this show from
14:32 here. So with this we are saying goodbye. I'm Gladys Cusara. Remember to follow us in our
14:37 socials and please stay tuned for another Carnival Times.