"Mas Camp" in Kilifi

Introduction to Mas Camp

by Allyson Holder and Ray Mahabir

Our start time today was 9AM but the enthusiastic group arrived at 8AM and were ready for the day’s programme.

Building on the concept of environmental carnival arts, Ray had the area arranged in the concept of a mini mas camp. 
Mas is a Trinidadian word that is a shortened version of Masquerade. Mas Camp brings communities together, it’s a melting pot of creative flair in a multitude of artistic crafts: wire bending; headdress building; and costume decoration.

The first activity for the morning was creating music makers out of recycled plastic bottles. This is where the tribal elements were incorporated into the design.

After a short refreshment break, the next session was a run through of Scenes 1-7 of Jungle Book with an audience of our additional volunteers for the day, Zwadi and Answari, again the focus was on the development of the character in terms of using face and body to show emotions, placement on the stage and understanding the presence of an audience.

We emphasized that performing is more than memorizing lines, indeed it is telling a story and to reach the audience the acting, body language, voice, emotions, and costume must work together for a great performance.

After lunch, we played a game which included a song about “mama making chapatis”. They sang in both English and Swahili and had all the corresponding movements.

The group was divided into two. The main actors continued with line reading and character development while the other group began to decorate their masks and music makers. The groups came together and were then all involved in decorating their pieces and stayed longer to ensure that they were finished.

The day was a beautiful creative one which ended with us getting to know each other better and we were delighted to discover that we had many siblings in the group.

We are thankful for another great day in Bofa village. We all are quite pumped and look forward to tomorrow’s continued mas-camp experience activities.