By Essiba Small
“Behind The Mas” is a series of feature articles, where we take you behind the scenes at different mas camps. We will look at the creative process and talk to bandleaders and the team members who bring everything together. This week, we visited the band Yuma Vibe on Tragarete Road, Port of Spain.
When a mas band goes the way of importing its costumes, does that means there is no activity in the mas camp?
Hardly so, as our visit to Yuma Vibe mas camp, on Tragarete Road proved. We didn’t find a room filled with workers putting costumes together, but we found a well-oiled machine.
Around here, the mas planning activity is different. A production team of five persons is responsible for protoyping, sourcing of raw materials, counting received stock and packing.
On the ground floor of the building, two workers were busy packing boxes of already completed (gems included) rose gold bikini bottoms, which were sorted according to size.
In a corner of the room, coloured plumes from last year’s costumes shared the same space with those for this year’s presentation.
If you ever wondered what the band does with feathers from the previous years, we were told that they were repurposed, given to stores for their Carnival decorations or to artistes for their Carnival music videos.
The elaborate backpacks for the Digicel powered section Nuri, were packed one on top the other on a cart in another corner. They feature feathers of red and yellow with small slices of blue, and doubled as spikes on the backs of two dragons.
In another room, on an upper floor, Karlea was on her laptop, liaising with local and foreign suppliers. Whenever the workload is heavier, she said, she joins the production staff.
“But Tanya (Tanya Gomes, the band’s co-director) wants us to learn different areas of the business.
Three doors down, Chantal, Melissa and Rejane occupied one of the production rooms.
Never mind that there were chairs in the room, Chantal sat on a pink patterned yoga mat on the floor, her back against the wall and her laptop on her crossed legs.
“I love sitting on the floor,” she said with a laugh.
Her role at Yuma is web development. She manages the mas band’s website along with Johnathan, who was absent.
Melissa and Rejane, two of the production coordinators, taking advantage of their downtime at the time of the day, shared gemming duties on masks for a section sponsor. The other production coordinators were in another room, Rejane said, but were camera and press shy.
“On Tour – A World to Celebrate” is Yuma’s 2024 presentation. It features 13 sections, two of them private and Rave, which is budget friendly.
This year’s presentation will also feature two new designers in Timothy Chin Fatt and Christian Chow Chung out of Grenada.
Co-director Tanya couldn’t catch a phone break when we visited. If Yuma is the beehive, then Gomes is the Queen B. She is not only taking calls from producers, she is also kept abreast of all that is going on from her staff, who popped in an out of her office, either with queries or updates.
The interest in the band’s 2024 presentation, among locals, has been encouraging, Gomes said.
“But we’ve been getting calls and emails of concern about crime in the country, from some of our foreign masqueraders.
“We are not burying our heads in the sand about crime, so we try to answer their questions.”
Elaborating on Rave, Gomes said the section was created for the man and woman who want to play mas without the beads, the feathers… the bling. Masqueraders in this section will still be afforded the same experience as other masqueraders, including lunch.
“I can’t say we have virgin revellers registering, but we have a lot who have crossed over,” she said with a smirk.
“And just as we did last year, we will have live steelband, Renegades – our national instrument—at our lunch stop. We also have a live band on the road, the A Team.
You can also expect Yuma to “pass through” the Socadrome this year.
As Gomes said “You know Yuma is not about competition, but plenty vibes.”
