Details of this year's edition of the largest street festival in the western hemisphere, Caribana, were revealed to general media Friday during a 90-minute presentation at Metro Square, the esplanade in front of Toronto's City Hall.
By Terry JosephAmong its new administrators being presented at the launch were Trinidad-born beauty consultant Joanna Parris, events manager for the 37th edition of the carnival fashioned after this country's national festival, which brings to Toronto upwards of 1 million visitors each year for its final weekend, which climaxes with a parade of mas' bands on July 31.
Friday's event also offered a preview of the music, dance, arts, cuisine, costumes and excitement organisers confidently expect will unfold during the two week period beginning July 16, when the public launch takes place at Nathan Phillips Square in the heart of the city, featuring calypso, soca and steelband music.
At the two-hour July 16 launch, which begins at noon that Friday and is free to the public, the list of specially-invited guests will include provincial and city officials, consuls general from various participating countries, Caribana directors, sponsors and representatives of mas, pan and calypso, who will jointly present a preview of festival attractions.
On the day following, a six-hour children's carnival parade, beginning at noon, takes the kids and their costumes from Shoreham East and winds its way down to the sprawling Yorkgate Mall (at Jane and Finch), hosting thousands of children in an event that has grown to contest the grandeur of the adult version that hits the streets two weeks later.
The next ten days of the Caribana calendar are punctuated by a gaggle of fetes, boat-rides and festival oriented gatherings, reflective of the mood of Trinidad Carnival, working patrons into a sweat at every sequence and delivering them unto the Panorama-type presentation called Pan Alive, which takes place at the historic Fort York on Garrison Road July 28 from 7 p.m.
Close to a dozen Steel Orchestras from the Ontario Steelpan Association will showcase their musical arrangements, in a contest differing from the Trini version in both form and content. Each band is allowed to play three tunes, as long as they fit the work into the 20-minute limit.
The Thursday night features the King and Queen of Carnival competition, which is on at Lamport Stadium also from 7 p.m., opening with an entry from Louis Saldenah, Toronto mas veteran and son of the local legend Harold Saldenah, presenting the first of 16 kings and queens of the bands vying for the 2004 title.
Even as that contest proceeds, Caribana in D Square, introduced last year as an additional opportunity for dancing to pulsating music, premieres at 5 p.m. and is scheduled to run until 2 a.m. at Toronto's newest outdoor entertainment space, the Yonge-Dundas Square; an activity that continues nightly until and including parade day-July 31.
The adult parade on Saturday July 31, begins at 10 a.m. at the Canadian National Exhibition and proceeds along Lakeshore Boulevard, ending at 6 p.m.
It is this event that put Caribana into the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest street festival on the continent, each year attracting an aggregate of spectators and participants in excess of a million; spread along the 3.6 kilometre route.
Unlike its mother Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago, Caribana doesn't officially stop at the end of the adult parade. Continuing on August 1 and 2 (it is the Civic Holiday Weekend), an art and culture festival takes place on Olympic Island for eight hours each day, the ferry ride offering as rewards a performing arts stage and vibrant market place stocked with attractions ranging from sculpture to soca, pan to paratha, roti to reggae.
