Carnival Scholars and Artists
Winter 2006

Ruth Tompsett is principal lecturer in drama and performing arts at Middlesex University. She introduced Carnival Studies to the B.A.P.A. degree program at Middlesex in 1986 and has established a widely used Carnival Archive and Study Resource at there. She organized the "Catch the Spirit: A Carnival Arts Conference" at the Museum of London in 1997 and co-organized the Black Theatre in Britain Conference at the University of London two years earlier. She is a long-standing adviser on carnival arts with Arts Council England and recently served on the Mayor of London's Carnival Review at the Greater London Authority. She has published writing on both black theatre and carnival arts and has contributed in an advisory capacity to a number of carnival-related exhibitions and performances.

Clary Salandy grew up in Trinidad and came to the United Kingdom to student theatre design at Central Saint Martin's School of Design in London. While there her interest in Caribbean carnival developed and she established contacts within the London carnival community. She designed her first band (masquerade band, not musical) in 1985, and together with technical director Michael Ramdeen set up Mahogany Carnival Band in 1989. Mahogany Arts is now a successful business, taking on commissions for costume design and production commercially, for carnivals mand other events. They have taken carnival to Dubai and Singapore and made study visits, focusing on festival arts, to India and Brazil. Her mas bands for Notting Hill Carnival have won numerous awards.

Related Events:
January 18, 2006 4:00-5:30pm Public Lecture (Roy Bowen Theatre)