Olympic theme at heart of Carnival this year

The 2012 Olympics will be at the heart of this year's Notting Hill Carnival, Boris Johnson announced today.

The west London event coincides with the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on 24 August, when London officially takes up the mantle of Olympic city.
Mr Johnson said the carnival's theme will be Welcoming The World, reflecting the multicultural spirit of the event and the people across the globe who will visit London for the Games.
He unveiled the plans as he met carnival dancers and was treated to a series of performances that will feature at the festival.
But he stopped short of taking up an invitation to play the bongos, fearful of unflattering publicity shots.
Carnival organisers are working with the team behind the Games handover to erect a 25-square-metre screen in Emslie Horniman's Pleasance, a park near Ladbroke Grove, so crowds can watch the events in Beijing and London live.
The festival takes place over the bank holiday weekend with more than 1.5 million people expected to attend to enjoy the parade of artists from as far as Brazil and Nigeria. The Mayor said: "Notting Hill Carnival is an inimitable event, bringing people of all communities together from across the capital and beyond.
"It illustrates the energy and colour of our great city and this year's event, coinciding with the official handover ceremony at the Olympic Games, will be even more special. The world will be watching London as it accepts the flag and the challenge to stage the best Games ever in 2012.
"This will be a fantastic day out, as well as a historic moment."
Allyson Williams, interim chairwoman of London Notting Hill Carnival, said: "No other event in the UK comes close to matching the artistic spectacle of the carnival. We are proud to be working alongside London 2012, with both demonstrating the capital's ability to host world-class events."
The Mayor also highlighted his family connections to the carnival, having lived in Ladbroke Grove as a boy.
His spokeswoman said: "His aunts would come from all over the country to take part in the weekend-long festival so in fact he was dancing away to the festival years before William Hague or any of the Notting Hill Tory set."
The announcement came as police said they had started targeting potential knife thugs before this year's event. Officers are identifying criminals and troublemakers to keep them away from the festivities. Chief Inspector Jo Edwards said: "We'll be targeting those people we know are planning to go to Carnival simply to commit crime and making sure they can't."
He added that search operations would be put up at the entrances to the carnival to stop people taking in weapons.

Katharine Barney, Evening Standard

LDA will lose 170 jobs as Mayor slashes costs
Police target thugs ahead of Carnival

DRAGONS 2008: MASK OF THE RED DEATH.

ragons make a return to mas with their version of the Edgar Allan Poe story mask of the red death, I myself thought that dragons had too suffered death being part of cocoyea the past couple years, but their return in conjunction with Release the rhythm can only add more variety to the Carnival.

I missed the RDR and the dragons launch but other devoted carnivalist on the net provided the visuals that told me what I need to know. Now there is a part of me that wants to tear this presentation apart, a concept such as this deservers a professional touch, etc, but I kind of like it …kind of.

Mask of the Red Death, is basically a story bout a masquerade ball thrown by a Prince Prospero during the course of a plague that killing poor people buy the hundreds, “But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.” in the middle of the party an uninvited figure dressed in a costume of the red plague enters the room and kills the guest and Prince Prospero also.



This dark story is littered with the symbolism of death and the underlying truth that no one can escape its clutches. The designer of the band this year did use her own themes of death for the band with what I will call moderate success, for Mask of the Red Death is a story in which a designer can go deep into and produce a lot of great ideas with relevance to the society we live in today.

The critical eye can tell where the designer got some of her ideas from, and from one designer to another I can only advise this, STOP USING TRINIDAD’S FUN BANDS AS POINTS OF REFRENCE OR INFLUENCE. These practices will surly stunt your creative growth, with this theme ideas and concepts can be found anywhere between 1842 when the story was published and 2002 in ANY part of the world using any other source of influence, and that’s the truth. All said and done there is a little something I like about the designers work, and it is the promise of better things to come in the future that I see in it.

Pictures from Digga D on Island Mix.

SOUTH CONNECTIONS 2008: AZTECS The Lost Empire.

N Saturday I went to the South Connections band launch of their n2008 presentation of “Aztecs the lost empire” the crowd was the usual SC posse of various age groups with a couple faces missing. However the launch was another success. While only three finished costumes were presented to a most enthusiastic audience. There is no doubt that South Connections are going to be a visual force on the road this N.H.C 2008. Like last year the designs were presented with synopsis giving you the background story of the mas, and also fabric samples of the costumes that were not presented on the night.


Aztec is made up of about ten sections that give you a glimpse of the various people that this ancient empire was compromised of, and the some of the factors that contributed to its downfall.
South Connections came second in the large band category last year wit de journey now starts have once again chosen Shuan Carrington to design this years presentation, and judging from what I saw on Saturday, South Connections figuratively got one hand on the big band of the year title already.

While critiques in the past have questioned Carrington’s signature style, some proclaiming that is does not change, this year his efforts gave the Aztec theme a fashionable twist not always seen in this theme.

Overall it was a great night the South Connections people know how to party, and with D.J Soca P, and Scooby Princess on the turntables there was never a boring moment I hope that energy can be seen on the streets bank holiday Monday.

CONCEPTS OF THE MAS ASSASSIN: Concept section for Symphony of life.

ince starting Massassination I have never, as far as I can remember done a mas remix or a mas concept for you to see, like I did on Island mix, but today that is going to change.

Symphony of life, the 2008 presentation by Burrokeets for Notting Hill Carnival, was a theme that fascinated me. However I found that their execution of the mas lacked originality, imagination, and creative depth. Their Symphony was a standard concept of steel pans, guitars, piano’s, and the chutney influences.

Now there is no expense to use a little imagination in the development of a concept. When critiquing Burrokeets, I stated that their design team needed to look outside of their little minds sometimes, for while they reside in the U.K, their mental seems to be stuck in early nineties Trinidad. And the proof can be seen in the dated lazy designs they have put out.

To show how easy it is to add a little depth to a mas, its meaning and design, I decided to put my own pens to paper and put down a little rough sketch for you.

So here is a little Massassination Mas Concept that I put together using the theme Symphony of life.

This concept section is called ‘Beat of the Street’.

Beat of the Street, is just that, in this symphony of life the streets ruminate with beats of urban culture, and music, be it raga, hip-hop, bangra, pop, or an amalgam of them all, but for youth across the global village that the Earth is today, the beat of the street is also the beat of death.

The costume is a 21^st Century, version of the notorious Midnight Robber Mas.

This character is a direct descendant of the Midnight Robber, a great, great, grandson or granddaughter of the ‘Agent of Death’.

Adorned not with the sombrero of his ancestors, this young ‘Death Dealer’ is hooded, or wears a cap.

But their trappings are familiar.

Their skulls are diamond or diamante encrusted, for they are driven by the bling, they still wear black, the colour most feared by all men and thought to be the colour of death.

They rock gold, and diamonds, the metals and minerals of cash, conflict, and genocide. From the villages of Africa, to the cities of London, New York and Port of Spain, men, women and children have died, Mothers and Fathers have cried, promise of tomorrow smothered by a red tide, on the streets of this robbers beat.

You might find it all gloom and doom, but mas is a reflection of life and life is not all fun and fantasy, and a symphony is not always sweet.

There you go, hope you understood it, I hope you liked it, and if not, that’s life.

Later.

JEWLES de CARNAVAL Section Launch CIRQUE de SOLIEL

It's like me and band launches cant mix this year, for one reason or the other i have missed them, hopefully my timing will improve in the weeks to come.

Last night was the section launch of Jewles de Carnival's first presentation to N.H.C. Cirque de Soliel.

The news I got is that the launch went well and the front line is already SOLD OUT so it seems JEWLES have hit the ground RUNNING.

look out 2009!!

BURROKEETS UK 2008 SYMPHONY OF LIFE.

hat do I say about a band like Burrokeets?

Its one of those bands that has a great vibe on the road, but the costumes are consistently inconsistent. One year they HOT next year they NOT, I don’t know if its that they have different designers every year, or what , but this years presentation called Symphony of life is more like a boring melody an old one at that.

The theme is music, types of music, musical instruments, music with different cultural backgrounds, yet the costumes look as dated as the theme. Yes the theme has been done on both sides of the Atlantic, many times, but nothing in carnival is new. It’s

How it’s done is what counts.

Any experienced Carnivalist can tell you they have seen a section of this band in another band some where already, I can NEVER understand how, or why designers or teams of researchers and designers fail to explore the universe outside that of their little minds.

In a multicultural metropolis like London, your telling me that the design team at Burrokets could not do better, with all the musical influences , that bounce around the airwaves from funky house, to hip hop, to soca, to dance hall, to classical, to, pop so many influences all over the airwaves yet THIS IS YOUR SYMPHONY OF LIFE?

I would hate to see their symphony of death…….