Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Extra Special Treat – Hart Dowd

July 10, 2006

This is Hart’s column but I took the liberty to add the Montreal Caribbean festival, called the Carifesta.  I never missed a year before, as my husband was from Barbados

Caribbean Cultural Festivities Association Announces Its 32nd Annual Carifiesta - July 8th 2006

The 32nd annual Parade will be staged along Rene Levesque Boulevard on Saturday, July 8th 2006 and will culminate at Place Emilie-Gamelin (Berri Park).

Carifiesta is an annual event produced by the Caribbean Cultural Festivities Association, (CCFA) a non-profit organization registered in the City of Montreal. The purpose of this event is to 1. Produce an annual Caribbean style parade to the City of Montreal called Carifiesta. 2. To develop and encourage cross-cultural expansion within the Montreal area. 3. To educate youths and adults in the arts, music, crafts and culture of the Caribbean.

CCFA will also host their Junior Carnival on July 2nd 2006 at Bill Durnan Arena
CCFA officially launches Carifiesta on date to be announced later.
Additional information on these events will be forthcoming.

For more information about Carifiesta events contact Caribbean Cultural Festivities Association at 514-735-2232; email caribbeanculture@bellnet.ca or visit www.carifiesta.ca

Carifiesta History:
Carifiesta, the local name for the Latin American ritual of carnival or masque parade dates back to the days of slavery in the Caribbean islands. For Quebec's Caribbean community, the Carifiesta Festival is an adaptation of the traditional pre-Lenten festivities which precede the Mardi gras Carnival celebrated throughout the Caribbean. Our festival took as its model the Trinidad & Tobago carnival. With large costumes, calypso music, steelpan, and hundreds of masqueraders dressed in exotic costumes.

Over the years, the festival has adapted to include many groups of Haitian origins, with their own music and style of dress. More recently, we have been joined by some groups from the Latin community. The festival is thus more representative of the Montreal community.

The festival is characterized by shows, dances, performances featuring different types of Caribbean music-calypso, zouk, reggae, racine-as well as the vibrant music of steelbands. Colorful "bands" of brilliantly costumed performers fill the streets with joviality and dance.

Carifiesta is viewed as an affirmation of the splendor and creativity of the Caribbean community: a festival which brings joy, happiness and spirituality to both participants and the masses of people lining the streets to view the parade. Herein lays the major contributions of Quebec's Caribbean community towards the cultural aesthetic of the region. Apart from the parade, there are other events leading into Carifiesta. The Junior Carifiesta, is for children between 2 and 16 years. The King and Queen Show, where masqueraders with the most elaborate and original costumes are selected to be the king and queen of Carifiesta. The Calypso Monarch, also a key figure in the festival is chosen as well.

www.carifiesta.ca

Now for Harts Column

CARIBANA 2006

North America's Largest Street Festival - July 14h to August 7th, 2006

Every summer, Toronto (Canada) blazes with the excitement of calypso, steel pan and elaborate masquerade costumes during the annual Caribana Festival.

Caribana, celebrating its 39th anniversary in 2006, is the largest Caribbean festival in North America. Presented by the Caribbean Cultural Committee, the two-week Festival attracts over a million participants annually, including hundreds of thousands of American tourists.

Among the highlights is the Caribana Parade, one of the largest in North America. Thousands of brilliantly costumed masqueraders and dozens of trucks carrying live soca, calypso, steel pan, reggae and salsa artists jam the 1.5 km parade route all day, to the delight of hundreds of thousands of onlookers.

Other keynote events include the King and Queen of the Bands Competition and the two-day Olympic Island Caribbean Arts Festival. Outdoor concerts of Caribbean music, calypso harbor cruise parties and glamorous dances round out the entertainment roster.

Caribana was created in 1967 as a community heritage project for Canada's Centennial year. Based on Trinidad Carnival, the Festival now also includes the music, dance, food and costumes of Jamaica, Guyana, the Bahamas, Brazil and other cultures represented in Toronto - the world's most culturally diverse city.

Historical Background to "CARIBANA" - More Than Just A Party!

"Without question, carnival had become a symbol of freedom for the broad mass of the population and not merely a season for frivolous enjoyment. It had a ritualistic significance, rooted in the experience of slavery and in the celebration of freedom from slavery.....Adopted by the Trinidad people it become a deeply meaningful anniversary of deliverance from the most hateful form of human bondage
-Professor Errol Hill in The Trinidad Carnival, 1972.

Toronto's Caribana, like carnival festivals in other places, is far more than just a party. It is a breaking down of the artificial barriers of society - like class, race and wealth. It is a celebration of literal and spiritual emancipation. It is also a time to turn society upside-down and take a good critical look at it.

Toronto Carnival is generally perceived to be based on Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. But where does "T&T" Carnival come from? In fact, most histories of Trinidad Carnival begin with a discussion of the ethnic and social make-up of the islands: people of African descent (both slaves and free): French plantation owners; East Indian and Chinese indentured laborers; British, Spanish and Creole settlers and the indigenous Indians. From the 1790s onwards Trinidad was remarkable for its multiplicity of racial and social groupings.

Before 1834, when slavery was abolished, Trinidad's Carnival celebrations had two aspects: the torches, drumming and other African-derived ceremonies of the slave classes, and the fancy-dress silks and satins of the European plantation owners. Often, the French monsieur’s and madam’s would dress as fantastical versions of their own slaves, while the slaves would parody the plantation owners.

After the emancipation, former slaves, under the concealment of disguise, brought their dances, their songs and their festival traditions to the streets, recreating in symbolic ways the freedom from the cane fields. This period was characterized by the participation of the "jamette" or under classes, and by cross-racial costumes. Archetypical characters-devils, bats, royalty, Indians and death figures - were gradually refined into such traditional favorites as the Jab Jab, Jab Molassic, Midnight Robber and pierrot Grenade (versions of which persist to the present day).

Throughout the mid-19th century, the middle and upper classes were extremely uneasy with this torchlight revelry. It seemed too bawdy, too raucous, and too liable to provoke riot and violence. Various measures were taken to prohibit public disorder, especially after 1881, when police and revelers clashed in the "Canboulay riot".

As the turn of the century approached, however, Trinidad began to recognize that Carnival was here to stay. Official competitions were established, while some of the more provocative elements were suppressed. Merchants began to understand the economic benefits of an annual street celebration, and soon a wider segment of society - including people from all races and classes - were "playing Mas" (that is, dressing up in masquerade costumes).

The early 20th century saw the dawn of the great era of Calypso. the steel drum was born; a wedding of African ingenuity and the cast-off industrial waste of foreign navies. the three art forms of Trinidad Carnival - masquerade or Mas', Steel Pan and Calypso - were developed as forms of social commentary that could criticize the law, the government or society at large without fear of punishment. Competitions in all three genres elevated the skill of their practitioners, so that today Trinidad Carnival is known by many as "the greatest show on earth."

Thus, Toronto's Caribana Festival is a complex hybrid. It has inherited African, East Indian and European festival traditions from Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. Over the years Caribana has also welcomed the festival traditions of members of many other communities that are now present in Toronto, including Jamaican, Brazilian, Cuban, St. Lucian, Guyanese, Bahamian, Antiguan, Barbadian and Dominican.

Trinidad Carnival falls just before the Christian season of Lent, so that a time of excess and indulgence is balanced by a time for introspection and abstinence. Coincidentally, Toronto's Caribana Festival falls on the anniversary of the emancipation from slavery in Trinidad (August 1, 1834), and also on the date of a European festival celebrating the first loaf of the New Year’s wheat and the opening of the fields for common pasturage.

These themes of liberation and renewal are essential to the Festival, and help to explain its enduring popularity. Meanwhile, Caribana is still in its infancy, even as it approaches its 39th anniversary. Its potent message for the rest of the world will continue to be spread for generations to come.

Friday, July 14, 2006: Official Launch: The Official Ceremony to open the festival mixes up the speeches with music, dance and a Caribbean food and crafts marketplace.
Noon to 2 p.m. at Nathan Phillips Square (Queen & Bay).
Admission: Free

Saturday, July 22, 2006: Junior Carnival: The first opportunity for the young masqueraders (age 4 to 16) to show off their finery with a carnival parade and Caribbean marketplace.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Yorkgate Mall (Jane & Finch).
Admission: Free

Thursday, August 3, 2006: King & Queen Extravaganza: The biggest and brightest costumes compete to be named best of the masqueraders.
7 p.m. to 12 a.m. Lamport Stadium (1155 King St. W.)
Admission: TBA

Friday, August 4, 2006: Pan Alive: A thrilling evening of pounding steel as steel orchestras from the Ontario Steel band Association compete before a panel of judges. 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Lamport Stadium (1155 King St. W.)
Admission: TBA (adult) TBA (senior/child)

Saturday, August 5, 2006: PARADE OF BANDS
A 3.6 kilometers street party. It begins at 10 a.m. at Exhibition Place and moves west along Lakeshore Blvd. to just east of the Boulevard Club. Ends at 6 p.m.
Admission: TBA at Grassy Node area. Free along Lakeshore.

Sunday, August 6 & Monday, August 7, 2006: Arts & Cultural Festival: A two-day lakeside festival of Caribbean music, arts, crafts, food, comedy, dance and culture. Olympic Island.
Admission: TBA (adult) TBA (senior) TBA (child). Island ferry service: Ferries leave from the Metro Ferry Terminal at the foot of Bay Street. Ferry tickets cost $6 (adult) $3.50 (seniors/students) $2.50 (children). Free for children under 2. Ferry schedule: 416-392-8193. (Be prepared for lineups of 45 minutes or longer.)

It began as the Toronto Caribbean community's salute to Canada's Centennial year. Now in its second millennium, its fifth decade and its 39th year, the Toronto Caribbean Carnival (Caribana) Festival is one of North America's greatest celebrations, attracting an estimated million participants annually.

A CARNIVAL GLOSSARY

CALYPSO:

Calypso, or Kaiso, derives from traditional African musical forms. Like its cousins, Jazz, Blues, Dub and Rap, it uses ingenious improvisation to comment on life, love, politics and society. Along with its Carnival counterparts, Mas' and Steel Pan, Calypso steps outside the boundaries of everyday life to express an opinion about it. Soca, the familiar Carnival party music, is a blend of Soul and Calypso. A recent variant is Rapso, a combination of Dub, Rap and Calypso.

CANBOULAY:

From the French canne brulee. Freed slaves in Trinidad celebrated Emancipation with ceremonial torchlight processions, drumming, and costumes that commemorated times of fire in the cane fields. Originally celebrated on August 1 (coincidentally the date of Caribana), Canboulay eventually became incorporated into Carnival time in the spring.

CHUTNEY SOCA:

"No more Mother Africa, no more Mother India, just Mother Trini: says "Brotherhood of the Boat", one of this year's popular calypsos. African and East Indian musical forms are blending more and more each year in this and other hybrid forms.

JAB MOLASSIE:

Painted devil: a traditional Trinidad Carnival costume. ("Jab" is from the French diable.) Another well-known devil costume is the Jab Jab, who resembles a jester, but carries a whip.

MAS' (MASQUERADE) BAND:

Each theme group in the parade is a "band". Each band includes a live musical group and masqueraders in costumes that depict a particular theme. The costumes are built in a Mas' Camp.

STEEL PAN:

Trinidad and Tobago gave the 20th century its only new acoustic musical instrument. In Trinidad and Tobago, the Steel Pan movement has evolved from skirmishes among rough young men to a huge celebration that culminates in the Panorama showdown each year.

In addition to the traditional Toronto attractions such as CN Tower, the Art Gallery, the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada's Wonderland and Ontario Place, visitors to Toronto Carnival will find a delight of activity awaiting them in the city. Top-rated shows featuring some of the world's best Caribbean entertainers await the visitor, as well as some of the finest West Indian style dining in North America.

Toronto also offers a unique shopping opportunity with a variety of markets and arts and crafts stalls everywhere across the city during the two-week carnival celebration.

Hartson Sager Dowd

hsdowd@telus.net