Soumayree
One of the few surviving East Indian traditional masquerade characters in Trinidad and Tobago, is central to Kamille Andrews’ performance and installation practice. Through the evolving figure of Soumayree, Andrews bridges ancestral cosmologies with contemporary narratives, using the body as a site of cultural memory, transformation, and resistance.
2025 – Iron Woman Soumayree
This reimagined Soumayree invokes the Orisha Ogun through the feminine body, expanding the character into a space of spiritual and sonic warfare. Inspired by Garnet Silk’s Music Is the Rod, the work positions music as a weapon of protection and liberation. In Iron Woman Soumayree (2025), the dhantal becomes more than an instrument: wielded at the navel and extended like a sword, it transforms sound into an act of spiritual resistance.
The physical posture required to carry and play the dhantal during processions emphasizes mobility, rhythm, and ritual—marking the performer as both bearer and warrior of sound. The performance also honors the legacy of steelpan, linking recycled instruments to themes of renewal and rebirth. Guna molas—sacred textiles from Panama and Colombia—are incorporated into the horse’s armor, rooting the Soumayree in Guna cosmology. These layered fabrics operate as both visual language and spiritual map, articulating histories of resistance, resilience, and cross-cultural connection.
2024 Soumayree in “Jus So Jus So” Showcase
A series of 10 Chalk Pastel drawings on paper reflective of the showcase by Abeo Jackson Productions - So You Want To Act Cycle 4.
“ A ritual symbolic of renewal, regeneration and rebirth; a process of transformation in which participants seem to transcend their human form. This process we may call Jouvay Process. But Jouvay Process can also be seen as the continual manifestation of an awakening in the everyday lives of people on the islands as they emancipate themselves in the new world.
This manifestation underscores a way of life that is reflected in the masquerade (mas) of the carnival days. The JPTP model, derived from musings on this Jouvay Process, was discovered out of a desire to see and describe, in performance values, the mechanisms of awakening and self-realisation that are embedded in the emancipation traditions.”
Hall, Tony. “Jouvay Popular Theatre Process [JPTP]: Finding the Interior.” Colonisation in Reverse: People’s Art and Taking Back the Streets, International Carnival Conference, York University, Toronto, Ontario, 30 July–3 Aug. 2008. Conference presentation.
2023 – Susilla Soumayree
Susilla Soumayree draws inspiration from Ardhanarishvara, the composite and androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati that symbolizes the unity of masculine and feminine energies. This iteration of the Soumayree explored duality and inner balance. The character was portrayed half in traditional clothing and half in corporate attire, embodying the tensions negotiated by contemporary women as they move between personal, professional, spiritual, and social realms.
