RUBADIRI

“On Guard!!!” The Leader of the Cleansing Spirits- ‘The High Sweeper’: from the short-film and Carnival Jouvay band ‘CLEANSE’ from Trinidad & Tobago, the Caribbean. The Spirit has come to the island to to purify what had become corrupted & to recover what was lost…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIO597duv1A
This scenario is from my Carnival Jouvay Band in Trinidad & Tobago called Generation Lion. Jouvay is the ritual pre-dawn opening of Carnival celebrations. It is a time of mystery, anarchy, primordial beginnings, abandon, and sensuality. Generation Lion is led by myself- multi-media artist Rubadiri Victor. I’ve been radicalising the Jouvay by re-introducing ‘masking’ and ‘sacred’ elements back into the festival. CLEANSE is meant to be a commentary on what the human being, the world, and my country need now. It is also a specific ritual created for Jouvay to invoke the ‘Cleansing’ necessary. It is a re-animation of an ancient African community cleansing masking ritual…
Written, Directed, Choreographed, & Styled by Rubadiri Victor. Photographed by Kerron Riley.

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Yet another photograph from my book ‘Meditation on the Traditions’ which chronicles Trinidad and Tobago’s endangered traditional masquerade on the streets Carnival Monday and Tuesday… The place where the traditional skills of masquerade are still apparent is in the Children’s Carnival. There you can still see the costuming and artisan skill that existed during the Golden Age. And plus the children have Grace and Spirit… This picture is entitled ‘Red Stare’.
Photograph by: Rubadiri Victor

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“And so it came to pass that upon a certain day Cleansing Spirits arrived in the Cursed and Blessed Land of Trinidad & Tobago… They came to purify what had become corrupted & to recover what was lost. They came to engage in Battle for the Soul of your Soul & for the Soul of the Republic…”
This is the character ‘The Savage Indicter’ played by Deon Baptiste from my 10 min short film called CLEANSE created from photographs taken for a Carnival Jouvay Band in Trinidad & Tobago. The mas band is called Generation Lion. Jouvay is the ritual pre-dawn opening of Carnival celebrations. It is a time of mystery, anarchy, primordial beginnings, abandon, and sensuality. Generation Lion is a Jouvay Band led by multi-media artist Rubadiri Victor who has radicalised the Jouvay by re-introducing ‘masking’ and ‘sacred’ elements back into the festival. CLEANSE is meant to be a commentary on what the human being, the world, and his country T&T need now. It is also a specific ritual the Artist has created for Jouvay to invoke the ‘Cleansing’ he sees as necessary. It is re-animating ancient African community cleansing masking rituals…
Written, Directed, Choreographed, & Styled by Rubadiri Victor. Photographed by Kerron Riley.

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alsharaz asked: wow really love your work, im a canadian toronto-based artist and both my parents were born and raised in Trinidad. your work is so inspiring and beautiful, i love it. I guess my question is is it strongly conceptual ?

Hi Alsharaz, thanks first of all… Well, i am a multi-media artist who has been working for a while in painting, music, TV, film, theatre, mas, writing etc etc. I have always approached my work in terms of ‘invocation of mythology’ which i understand intuitively and intellectually. Each silo of my work has approached itself with that mythological/conceptual intent. Over time these mythologies have overlapped, intersected and begun to cohere. Next year will mark a kind of convergence of all these parallel mythologies in a series of multi-media shows, events, multi-media artifacts and destinations… Of course it helps that Trinidad & Tobago probably has the richest mythological and aesthetic modes to apprentice to… Hope that answers your question… Meanwhile keep spreading the word and link about the work, I’m interested in how people respond to it…

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The Leader of the Cleansing Spirits- ‘The High Sweeper’: from the short-film and Carnival Jouvay band ‘CLEANSE’ from Trinidad & Tobago, the Caribbean. The Spirit has come to the island to to purify what had become corrupted & to recover what was lost…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIO597duv1A
This scenario is from my Carnival Jouvay Band in Trinidad & Tobago called Generation Lion. Jouvay is the ritual pre-dawn opening of Carnival celebrations. It is a time of mystery, anarchy, primordial beginnings, abandon, and sensuality. Generation Lion is led by myself- multi-media artist Rubadiri Victor. I’ve been radicalising the Jouvay by re-introducing ‘masking’ and ‘sacred’ elements back into the festival. CLEANSE is meant to be a commentary on what the human being, the world, and my country need now. It is also a specific ritual created for Jouvay to invoke the ‘Cleansing’ necessary. It is a re-animation of an ancient African community cleansing masking ritual…
Written, Directed, Choreographed, & Styled by Rubadiri Victor. Photographed by Kerron Riley.

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The Leader of the Cleansing Spirits ‘The High Sweeper’ exhorts you to take up the broom to sweep away the forces of grime, greed, tyranny, ignorance, bleaching, ‘bohbol’ and ‘bassa bassa’…
A photograph from the experimental short film ‘CLENASE!” which is about the arrival of 4 mysterious Cleansing Spirits to the island of Trinidad & Tobago. They came to purify what had become corrupted & to recover what was lost. They came to engage in Battle for the Soul of your Soul & for the Soul of the Republic & to restore the nation to its Golden Age…:
Check out the film at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIO597duv1A
The entire scenario comes from a Carnival Band called ‘Generation Lion’ which puts on themed presentations every year at Trinidad’s Jouvay ritual. Jouvay is that magical ritual of creative and sensual anarchy that opens every Trinidad-style Carnival just before the sunrise. It is a ritual of the sunrise.
Written, Directed, Choreographed, & Styled by Rubadiri Victor. Photographed by Kerron Riley

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Another image from my book ‘Meditation on the Traditions’ which chronicles Trinidad and Tobago’s endangered traditional carnival masquerade. A close up of a ‘Molassie in Motion’- a ‘Black Devil’ tradition character; cousin to the ‘Jab Molassie’ tradition. The ancestor to this masquerade is a secret society in West Africa whose job it is to circle the village and draw out all the Evil and bad karma and then bury it on the outskirts of the village thus exorcising the village and renewing its life and karma for another year…

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Another picture from my book ‘Meditation on the Traditions’- a documentation of Trinidad and Tobago’s endangered traditional masquerade on the streets on Carnival Monday and Tuesday… This was a magical moment: an individual costume resting in front of the gate of an old Gothic church- the wind caught the wings at the moment the light changed, he bowed his head- the costume looks like a fallen angel or a water deity of some sort…

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Another image from my book ‘Meditation on the Traditions’ which chronicles Trinidad and Tobago’s endangered traditional masqueraders on the street Carnival Monday and Tuesday. These are traditional ‘Black Devil’ or Jab Jab characters in front of one of the nation’s Gothic churches.

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