A lone figure steps into the middle of a Belmont Street, signaling the start of the procession. He wears what looks like a floor-length dress; it’s made with dried banana leaves. He has a beaded headpiece that extends past his waist, with two straw-like spears attached to his back. His face, shoulders and arms are covered in a thin layer of mud.

The photographers gathered respond by aiming their cameras at him. He is Jelili Atiku a Nigerian performance artist on an art fellowship. Atiku is then joined by three others similarly dressed in dried banana leaves. Their costumes are from the band K(c)ongo Dey a joint venture between Robert Young’s Vulgar Fraction mas band and the Institute for Small Islands. The parade on February 13th was their band launch.

To create the costumes, they borrowed a machine from UWI’s Engineering department to process the bark and leaves so that they can be turned into a thread of sorts and coaxed into specific designs. In this band masqueraders are part of the creative process. You don’t just get a costume, you make it.

In its mission to encourage a discussion on sustainability, the band wants people to consider the impact of the materials in their electronic devices. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest producer of cobalt needed to create batteries used in electronic like computers and cell phones often with devastating environmental results. The DRC is also in the middle of a now 30-year civil war. They are mineral rich, but unable to benefit from it.

Young said their processing of the banana leaves is a metaphor for the extractive process. It is also a revival of a long-lost Pai Banan or Banana Trash mas. In his book Under the Mas the researcher Jeff Henry described the costume as being made of dried banana leaves stitched onto a cloth base. Its origins are unclear, but research on similar forms that still exist on the French islands point to its African roots.

Accompanying his Kongo Dey masqueraders were a trio of baby doll characters led by Amanda McIntyre. She has been playing baby doll mas – a traditional mas form – since 2011. The character is typically dressed in a Victorian-style night gown with bonnet, not dissimilar to what the doll she is carrying wears. McIntyre was introduced to the character by the late women’s rights activist Hazel Brown, who often used it to highlight how the gender imbalance negatively affects women.

McInytre’s portrayal of the character called “Dolly Ma” is an afro-futuristic reinterpretation of one of the older masquerades in Trinidad and Tobago. In it she deliberately sought to empower her character so that she is not forced to beg for money to “feed her child”. McIntyre’s babydoll exists in a community that supports both mother and child, so the only thing her character is searching for is fulfilment.

Her costume is a far cry from the nightie the first babydolls wore. McIntyre’s version is well groomed, in a petticoated dress, accessorised with matching gloves and parasol. “What we present is a mid-Victorian to mid-Edwardian aesthetic with some Rococo (18th century Parisan-style) and Elizabethan influences as well,” she explained.

Her design choice has been criticised as a middle-class retelling that erases the social commentary of the original. But McIntyre reminds this is what was said of the mas in the 60s, when this version of the babydoll emerged. She said each revision is met with response, whether negative or positive, that is a necessary part of the portrayal.

Also at the launch, but not in costume was the actor/ musician Nickolai Salcedo. He has been exploring bat mas several years now. Salcedo came to the form because of his love of playing mas in black. But unlike what the late Matthew and his father Edgar Whiley did, Salcedo’s bat is stylised.

“What I remember of their bat mas was that it was bats. that just looking at it, even the face, how the wings are shaped, what they do, they are mimicing bats,” Salcedo said.

He also said this may be his last year doing bat mas, and as a change they will be switching colour to white. But this is not an abandonment of his exploration of bat, it will remain a feature in his art elsewhere, and he is hopeful there could be innovation for actual flight at some stage.

Within Carnival the traditional mas characters are a group of designs, often with backstory and specific movements. Consider the various dances of the uniform mas now lumped together within the sailor category, or the wine of the Jab Jab. Some of the oldest characters are present in the oldest image of Trinidad’s carnival Melton Prior’s illustration done in 1888, of mas on Frederick Street.

Former children’s mas designer and lecturer in UWI Carnival Studies programme, Kenwyn Murray said the institutions can play a huge part in determining which of these forms have longevity.

“Some of them, persons in the community, institutions, as well as government, persons working inside the government, reached in and molded them back into prominance,” Murray said.

He points to the late John Cupid, for whom the National Carnival Commission’s Village is named as one such person. He was known for encouraging small community groups across the country that were engaging in these traditional mas forms, and helped some of them receive mainstream attention. Murray said Bat and Dragon mas are some of the forms saved from extinction by Cupid’s intervention.

Cupid is also the first person to stage a Canbouley reenactment.

The traditional mas which is the mas of characters and street theatre is distinct from Old Mas, which is the satirical form typically performed during Jourvet, the pre-dawn ritual where revellers smear themselves first in mud and oil, now paint and abir, releasing their inhibitions on the streets.

Elisha Bartels is a choreographer, actor and writer. This year she is also a band leader, having joined with a group of like-minded women to produce a band called Jouvay Love that, for her, may fill the void vacated by the rapso group 3Canal who decided last year was their last as bandleaders.

“We just wanted to make sure that there was a space for that as well, people who come into J’ouvert for the ritual of it, for the tradition of it, people who want to make their own mas and actually explore what jouvey is all about in terms of that coming out of the darkness and into light and what that sense of rebirth and renewal really is for us,” Bartels said.

The word is French Creole for the opening. It is the start of mas in Trinidad and Tobago. For many people it is a necessary part of the Carnival process, some likening it to a spiritual experience. Its origins have been linked to the Orisha Obatala festival, which is religious festival.

Baba Ifabenjo Oriyomi Orisagbemi Dada of the Ile Oosa Igbo Itapa (Obatala Shrine) in Woodbrook isn’t sure. The annual festival symbolises the start of their year. They adorn themselves in chalk, that some compared to mud. He acknowledged there are elements of J’ouvert some see as a secularised version of the festival.

“They always say, you know, that the steelband begin in a Palais (Orisha place of worship),” he said. “They would have seen things, they would have noticed it. Because I have always heard about the guy who would come out J’ouvert morning with the broom. and he would sweep the yard, and he would make sure everything is alright and would pray. That’s real! That Orisha that would prepare a place for the celebration”

For practitioners of the traditional mas their performance is a connection to the history of the festival. They are guided both by customs that have been passed down for generations and a need to keep them relevant to a modern Trinidad and Tobago.