Time to Mas! Carnival camps open for judging
Wednesday night was day one of the annual mas camps that leads up to the carnival road March on September seventeenth. A record number of bands are taking part in the revelry hoping to capture the title as carnival champs. The camps started with a visit to four of the bands. News Five’s Duane Moody was there and has this report.
Duane Moody, Reporting
A total of sixteen bands—six juniors and ten seniors have made their bid to capture the title as champions of the Carnival Road March this year. It’s an unprecedented number of bands and Mas Camp 2016 commenced with a visit to four of the sixteen; seniors: Belizean United, Evolution and Sunshine Mas Band and junior, the Pickstock Carnival Band. Our first stop took us to Belizean United on Zacaranda Street.
Ashman Wiltshire, Band Leader, Belizean United
Ashman Wiltshire
“My theme is the sacred wings and wonder, originally our theme was going otbe birds of a feather and it was just so much of a hard theme to bring around to the audience, the whole story is we have these beast that have these beautiful wings and we have people who for centuries who have travelled and tried to capture them to run tests on them to find out why are they so big, why are the colors so bright, why are they shaped like this and they can’t seem to figure it out. Our queen is ruler of the earth and she protect her people and seek over her kingdom. The king draws his strength from the queen along with his two sister, they have a strong bond and they hold the kingdom down.”
But Sunshine Masqueraders Senior Bands have literally created birdlike costumes for its revelers. For the first time, the group is fielding a senior band and is the only camp that is putting out both a senior and a junior group. Jenine Young explains more about Birds of Belize.
Jenine Young
Jenine Young, Sunshine Masqueraders
“We are doing the scarlet macaw the blue and the yellow and green scarlet macaw, the queen, the red and gold scarlet macaw which we won second place in the King and Queen completion, I thought about it and I said, it’s a good theme you know but it will cost because we are dealing with a lot of feathers and that is the most expensive part of our costume.”
The final senior band for the night was Evolution over on Handyside Street. Myths and Legends was the theme chosen by Band Leader Amanda Taylor
Amanda Taylor, Band Leader, Evolution
Amanda Taylor
“Well you can expect more glamorous costumes from previous years, this year we will be portraying myths and legends, just that the thing is we are not portraying Belizean legend but in general, Greek, Irish legends. We have three sections each depicting a different myth and legend, the first we have the white and silver section which is the queen of fairies, then we have the second section which the mermaid section and then we have the last section which is brown and gold which is the venomous dragon. This year we got a little more creative than we normally do, we think very outside the box this year and we decided to do designed that are not normally done by us, so we are definitely bringing a different show this year.”
The only junior group for Camp Night Day One was Pickstock Carnival Band and its team “A New Day Dawn,” celebrating the spirit of the bacchanal.
Gareth Gill
Gareth Gill, Band Leader, Pickstock Carnival Band
“We have decided lets pull through carnival, we look back and we say you know what the night has come, we are preparing for carnival the next day, so the morning has come a gold light has signed and it welcomed us so we know that carnival is here which is carnival afternoon. Our band consist of ninety members strong, we are trying to get the hundred and fifteen which we know we will get which we lack some finance a little but we will be put there and we are pushing for this and we know that we will be in the top two. The first section is the black and white, which represents the night before the day, the gold represent the shining star that shines in the morning or the sun that come up in the morning and the afternoon is the part where we celebrate, the time is here and we are going to celebrate as one.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
