Alright....so I'm supposed to be sleeping, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Said that I'd do a once over for the what's what from the recent SVG Carnival--so here it goes.
For those unfamiliar, Carnival is a massive cultural bash that is the largest tourism (on all levels) force here on St. Vincent & the Grenadines. I can't speak for the other Eastern Caribbean countries, but since they also have their own Carnival events I'll assume this to be true for them as well. In fact, some of the other islands hold their Carnival in short conjunction with the neighbor islands. I believe this helps attract the "Carnival hoppers" who island jump from one Carnival to the next.
A brief history...
As I've learned from AllAhWe.org, the Caribbean Carnival of today was born between the African cultures from the slave trade and the Catholic practices brought by colonialism. European Catholics have their 'carnevale' or 'putting away the meat' as practiced during their time of Lent and the Mardi Gras or 'fat Tuesday' time shortly thereafter as part of the religious celebrations. These traditions were brought with them and mixed with the African slaves. Over time, the African decorations from natural materials such as grass, feathers, bones, etc. became a standard of costuming for these events. Cultures and time evolve and have brought us into the festival periods of Carnival we know today. Carnival in this form can be found in many places throughout the world, not just in the West Indies--although they have their own distinct flavor for it here.
Technically the Carnival holiday here fell on July 6&7th but the events span more than a solid week and some events stretch intermittently as long as a month into what they call "Vincy Mas". Here's the date line-up for the Vincy Mas from this year:
- 2 May--Official Launch
- 30 May--Miss SVG pageant; multi-category pageant with the winner to represent in Miss Carnival
- 19 June--Fantastic Friday; not really sure what that was
- 26 June--Ragga Soca; music competition between live performers
- 27 June--Junior Carnival; a jump-up time for the younger kids enjoy
- 28 June--Junior Pan Fest; chance for the youth steel pan bands to come out and show their stuff & compete
- 29 June--Mas on the Move; a street party I think
- 39 June--Junior Calypso/Soca; youth performance competition by music categories
- 1 July--Glow; a big bash with mostly Soca music and of course....lots of glowing goodies--sticks, wands, light-up toys
- 2 July--Panorama & Fire Fete; a back-to-back event night with the regular steel pan band competitions followed by a soca jump-up
- 3 July--Miss Carnival Pageant with contestants represented from several Eastern Caribbean countries.
- 4 July--Soca Monarch; the largest and hands-down most popular event. A jump up contest show down between 20 soca artists with massive stage shows
- 5 July--Dimanche Gras; an early look at some of the crazy costumes and calypso artists show down competitition
- 6 July--Jouvert (pronouce it joo-vay); this bash starts early in the morning around 3ish and goes until mid morning about 9-10ish. Of course, many people are hanging out before then on the streets getting 'warmed up'. This is perhaps the craziest/most wild event of the Carnival.
- 6 July--Evening Street Party; hang out on the sidelines or purchase a shirt 'pack' with goodies and join in the varied 'shirt jam' crews as they bounce through the streets of Kingstown dancing with party trucks.
- 7 July--Mardi Gras; the final day of Carnival. It starts with costume judging and parades through town followed by a day of jovial parties and street jumps till about 10pm when everything stops.
These are some postcard art that were made available to promote the Carnival. More info can be found at the SVG Carnival website. You can link to that site to find out more about some of the performers, winners of the competitions, and more about the festivals and their sponsors.
More posts to come about the events I attended.
Stay safe and happy,
ciao tutti
~your local wannabe jedi
~Shawn
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