Working on the Quest - WebQuest, that is

It is a thing I never thought I would be doing really, because I never thought I had the intellectual gumption! Well, well, well, who would have thunk it???!!! Not me. Not really, although on reflection it is really not so surprising. I have been involved in drama since I was about 13 (seventh grade?), I participated in dramatic productions as crew and performer since then until my early 20s.  I have been a Carnival masquerader since 1991: I realised I was missing out after I took my then toddler daughter to take part in Children's Carnival.

So, as a teacher of Literature, I think my creativity was challenged, because I had never thought of merging the two forms together-even though designers like Wayne Berkeley(deceased) and Peter Minshall had moved quite easily between the stage and the street in their work.  Most recently, Brian MacFarlane has been doing the same, but 2013 was his last Carnival presentation, he says.  I have participated in productions by all three of these artists over the years.  But then, I am a teacher, not a designer-not so?

Well, the brain stretched itself in ways that I did not think possible.  I think that there are still more avenues I could explore with this, but I think I need to know more about 21st production .  When I was looking for the pictures and the sources, I realised how much was in the cyber world about my country-and I saw and thought about things in a way that I never did before. I thought about how designers brought creations from the page to the stage, also about how a designer would conceptualise something like Shakespeare.  Then I realised that historically, Carnival designers have used Shakespeare and John Milton, so I was in good company.

It was also a challenge because the prevailing perception of Trinidad Carnival is one which features scantily clad people in various stages of euphoria and/or intoxication.  It was good to focus on other aspects of creativity and originality.  Not much is known about the opposite, but it does exist, and I hope that the webquest would show that.  I would also like to think that the students would be interested in this aspect as well, and that it would enhance their own creativity to take from Shakespeare and bring an understanding of the play and the portrayal together.