By Stephen Weir Freezing Rain. Stinging ice pellets. Blowing snow and streets filled with slush. Car Crashes. Power Outages… Despite warnings to stay off the roads, revellers thumbed their noses at the horrible weather on Saturday night to celebrate the coming summer with the Carnival Nationz Mas’ Camp. “I was shocked to see the sheer […]
By Stephen Weir Early last Sunday morning the doors closed at the York Mills Gallery banquet hall where over 600 disappointed people had showed up for the Toronto Revellers Band Launch. For carnival aficionados, the annual Revellers Band launch is usually an occasion of great excitement. Not so this year. In fact last Sunday’s launch […]
By Stephen Weir Sunday morning at the Grand Deluxe Ballroom in North Toronto and sunrise only three hours away. It was very late even for a mas’ band costume launch, when Tribal Carnival founder Dexter Seusahai and daughter, Celena Seusahai, wearing the showstopping costume, lowered the music and told the wildly clapping fans where their […]
By Stephen Weir I don’t know anything about Ryan Oldham (aka Farmer) aside from the fact that he dances worse than I (and I am the undisputed King of the Misstep). But in the wee hours of Sunday morning, his dancing stole the show at Epic Carnival’s Scarborough costume launch. It was 1.30 a.m. […]
By Stephen Weir and Craigg Slowly More fashion show than a costume launch, the 2018 carnival season kicked off in Scarbrough on the weekend with a big bite of Venom. The Venom Carnival mas’ band staged the first costume launch of the season and attracted over 1,000 paying customers, most of whom were there to […]
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) bills its February evening millennial bash as Shake It. But, Trinidadian Canadian actress and playwright Rhoma Spencer plans to take it up a notch, dazzling, rocking and “carnivalizing“ hipsters who will be taking in the First Thursday party on February 1. Shake It is meant to attract new (and […]
Calypsonian Macomere Fifi (Eulith Woods) was elected president of the Organization of Calypso Performing Artistes (OCPA) at a meeting in Toronto on October 25 last. Other officers elected were: Tara Gonzalez – Vice-President; (Cosmos) Henry Gomez – Secretary and (Webb) Hamilton Alexander – Treasurer. The positions of Public Relations and Marketing and Fundraising are yet […]
A prominent mas’ band leader, a highly talented carnival artist, a Grammy award winner with several soca music hits to his name and a veteran pannist, were among eight persons from Toronto’s Caribbean community who received awards on Thursday night at the FMC (Festival Management Committee) Pioneer Award and Volunteer Appreciation dinner. At this apres-carnival […]
The recent “Caribbean relief and rhythms” benefit performance, organized by the Caribana Arts Group (CAG) in association with the Phoenix Concert theatre, has raised $15,000 to assist several hurricane-battered islands. CAG Chairman Monica Pollard said the funds will be sent to Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Cuba and St. Maarten. She also reported that more than […]
By Lincoln DePradine The Caribana Arts Group (CAG) – formerly known as the Caribbean Cultural Committee (CCC) which organized and ran Caribana –announced on Sunday that it plans to put on a ” Caribbean carnival ” next year in Toronto. “We are planning, in 2018, to create another important platform – a stage, if you […]
