Mikinee Moses ’06, NYC, NY, is taking advantage of every last
opportunity she can at St. Lawrence. Mikinee conducted research with
Randy Hill and Andrea Nouryeh, both associate professors of performance
and communication arts on “Carnival – Constructing
National, Cultural, and Individual Identity through Festival,” focused
on the annual celebration that occurs before Ash Wednesday in several
different countries, including Trinidad, Mikinee’s home county. She
graduated from Martin Luther King Jr. High School in NYC.
While Mikinee began studying the entire two-day celebration, she
soon narrowed her research down to focusing on traditional characters
that are found at Carnival. “The characters tell the
story, and the stories and people move from generation to generation,
symbolic of the history of Trinidad.”
It was easy for Mikinee to decide whether or not to continue
her research. “My generation doesn’t pay attention
to traditional characters, and I want to publish work on
the festival from a Trinidadian perspective,” she
says. “I want to learn how the characters evolved and
provide that information for subsequent generations, so they can
see it, know it, and want to be a part of it.”
In January, Mikinee received a grant from the International
Studies office in order for her to travel to Trinidad
and Grenada to conduct research and interviews with people involved
with the festival. Mikinee then received yet another
grant enabling her to visit Trinidad once more for the
actual celebration of Carnival. “I was there for
two weeks and engaging in events where the traditional characters
performed made my pores raise,” she says.
Mikinee, who is performance and communication arts major with a minor
in mathematics, says that the reason for conducting this research
is to better understand who she is and where she comes from. “I
wanted to become familiar and understand a part of my own culture and
identity,” she says.
