Title: It’s Carnival Time!!!
Location: Onehunga Working Mens Club
Date: 05 June 2010

Back in the days of enforced labour (slavery) in the Caribbean, the Catholic European plantation owners held masked balls before Lent1. This tradition started in Italy and was known as ‘Carnevale’ which means ‘to put away meat’. The French plantation owners on the Caribbean Islands also had their own form of Carnival. The Africans who were enslaved on the Caribbean Islands had their own celebration, drawing on their culture of drumming and parading through villages in masks and costumes to bring good fortune, ward off angry spirits and satirize those who had enslaved them. These traditions have grown into what is now celebrated in the Caribbean islands as Carnival. People taking part in a carnival parade are known as masqueraders. It’s about music, costume, colour and mostly about having a good time!
The Caribbeanz Southern Stars’ Carnival in Auckland

The Caribbeanz Southern Stars Steelband have brought this tradition to Onehunga and we are holding our fourth Carnival event on Saturday 5 June, 2010 at the Onehunga Working Mens Club. In previous years we have delighted party goers with our masqueraders and our steelband music. We want you to enjoy the experience of Carnival and nothing gets you more in the mood than a bit of costume and ‘dress up’! Your costume can be as simple as a mask or as elaborate as a full costume with headdress, feathers and major mechanical constructions! We parade in groups known as ‘bands’. So get a group of friends together to form a band and start getting creative. Get a theme for your band! That’s a lot of fun!

Simple ideas for costumes:

Spotlight or The Warehouse or the Two Dollar Shops are great places to go for materials at a cheap price. Mask kits are a good starting place. Hot glue guns make being creative very simple too. Your creations don’t have to be perfect. They only have to hold together for one night of dancing!

Hats are another easy way to give your band a unified look. The dollar stores have very cheap plastic and cardboard hats but again, get out the hot glue gun (or the tape or the stapler) and make them a bit special.
Have a look at novelty fabrics for ideas too. Your band could all wear ordinary cloths and have strips of the same fabric tucked into waistbands or tied around wrists, headbands etc.

Face paint is easy to apply and gives your band a distinctive look. Your theme could be a word like ‘fire’ and your costumes could be strips of red and orange fabric with flames painted across your faces.
Costume hire shops have lots of ideas too. You could hire one or two main costumes (say a king and queen) and have the rest of the band dressed in something less elaborate.

And once Carnival is over, start planning something bigger for next year!

But see you all this year!!

Love Rona,

Proud Masquerader

Reference: www.caribseek.com