Culture Director endorses move to enforce police permit for road appearances of Masquerade Bands-looking to have grassroots resuscitation of the tradition

Apr 05, 2019 News

A female masquerade dancer blocks the path of a car on the West Demerara roadway as she demands cash

Masquerade bands will now have to acquire an endorsement letter and police permission before they embark on personal ventures that warrant their presence on public roadways. This is according to Director of Culture Tamika Boatswain.
She was responding to a proposed moved by the police to ensure that masqueraders receive police permission before taking over the roadways in their many ventures (many times not orchestrated by the Department of Culture).
Boatswain said that over the years, masquerade bands have failed to acquire the required endorsement letter from her ministry and would normally get on the roads for personal ventures. She added that many times her department would not get wind of the occurrences until long after incidents occurred.
She explained that the only time the bands/groups do not require permission to get on the roadways, is when they are participating in ventures directly promoted by her department.
That aside, she added that her department will soon engage in sessions with masquerade groups from across Guyana to ensure that they operate within the regulations of the Culture Department, and also respect the department’s objectives of a traditional approach to their activities.
Over the years the traditional masquerade art form has dwindled from a traditional cultural showcase to a money-making avenue, where dancers just prance along the roadways (offering lacklustre performances), and demanding monies from often infuriated drivers, many times blocking their paths until the drivers give in.
Yesterday Boatswain said her department is also faced with a situation where groups are springing up in various communities, getting into costumes and prancing in the streets. She said that many on the roads may not be registered masquerade groups, and as such, she welcomes an intervention by the police to administer discipline to perpetrators. She added that while her ministry is not against masqueraders engaging in any related activities to showcase their culture, she expects them to operate fully within the confines of rules and regulations governing their practice.
Last weekend, a masquerade group created massive traffic congestion for over two hours when they took to the streets in a fiasco that infuriated drivers and even endangered the lives of many young dancers who were almost run over by angry drivers.
During the incident, two female teenaged dancers deliberately stood/danced directly in the path of vehicles, and refused to move until they succeeded in extracting cash from the reluctant drivers/passengers.
Onlookers had expressed anger at the fact that dancers no older than ten years old, were being forced to dance in the path of vehicles for cash by a band leader from West Demerara. Traffic was held up for over two hours, and police from the Vreed-Hoop-Police Station had refused to intervene into the matter.

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