Events Director of the Dominica Festivals Committee (DFC), Nathalie Clarke is urging stake holders to unite in order to motivate young people to get involved in traditional carnival celebrations.
“If you notice the more mature people are the ones who do the mas,’ the sensays, the lapos, the bande mauvais, the darkies. If you look at the organising committee unit they are mature people. Where are the young people that are being nurtured to take up the baton and run with it?” Clarke inquired.
She said that if nothing is done to make culture important to the youth, traditional mas’ and Dominica’s culture will disappear.
“We have to get serious about passing on the techniques of how to make the costumes. We have to motivate them to become darkies, or sensays so that our culture can live on,” she stressed.
Clarke also noted that the various village carnival organisations should use Carnival City as a method of marketing and selling the Dominican carnival experience.
“I recognize in Dominica that the village carnival’s are the strength of who you are and I applaud you, but I also recognise that all that beauty, creation and excitement that you do in the villages has no space or home where all minds can contend or come in to one captive space,” she said.
She argued that it is easier to sell the carnival experience when it is in one area. “You can sell it as a package to the region, internationally, everyone will know that you can come to Carnival City, pay your money and experience the whole beauty of Dominica’s carnival in one space,” she said.
Clarke noted that the DFC intends to work closely with the various village carnival organising committees to assist in expanding carnival.
The thesis of her statement was not about carnival in villages but it was about the older folks teaching the young people the techniques of making costumes so that when they die, the art will not die with them. We need to learn and educate ourselves so that we can respond in accordance to the issue or issues being presented by the speaker.
Look talking bodie to much first ED I see talking talking talking she working I hope so.
She is right. money is wasted on all that activity, some which is just sewo all over the island. A company must sponsor a carnival event in Roseau. Then 10 other villages still ask the same company to sponsor the same carnival from Capuchin to Cashacou.. it’s not easy. Perhaps the village councils should organise a cultural fund to help from Village feasts etc.. Or also DFC could have 2 carnival zones: North & South. There’s power in numbers.
so she wants everything down in Roseau, well she has to think again we staying in our villages and doing our own thing spend the money there and not in Roseau, clean up the town first then people might come down.. go Marigot, La Plaine, Mahaut Wesley and anywhere else enjoy your opening day be safe have fun
Dear Ms. Clarke,
By all means, you “sell” your carnival, including the meaningless t-shirt bands, and the people keep theirs, traditional, as it has been for ever. You think the village shopkeepers, vendors and rum shops don’t deserve to make their money also?
In keeping the culture alive she could have learn the names of the various costums cause locally it’s not “Darkies”. lead by example!
Why don’t we try this….make carnival in Roseau look like something. Encourage parish bands. Right there you have 10 bands on parade. But the private sector has to be willing to lend a helping hand. And the dfc too. If you all can get that going you get 10 costume bands with innumerable sections and colors galor. Just thinking.
As far as I’m concerned carnival has for ever been a feast by the people for the people.If DFC desire to commercialize it that is their problem. I’m quite happy to leave it as it is, full of local spontaneity and not commerce hijacking it.
It’s Commerce supporting it at the moment.. without most of the business sponsorships…not much will happen. From village feasts to carnival.. companies get hundreds of requests from all kinds of groups asking for help, no one raises funds these days. Companies must just give, give, give.. and sometime not much in return..
I like that sentiment despite the 0/3 like/dislike ratio. The statement by Ms. Clarke is contradictory or deliberately subtle to disguise her true intentions.
Traditional mas and Dominica’s culture will surely disappear if she wants to confine carnival within the walls of Carnival City. How can you help the Village Organizing Committees expand carnival by having everyone pay their money to see the carnival at Carnival City? Not gonna happen.
Ms. Clark must find ways to improve her package in Carnival City to attract regional and international tourism and stop viewing the villages as her competition. Her attempt to limit carnival to the confines of Carnival City will surely lead to the death of carnival in the villages, the majority of whose villagers cannot afford to pay for a single show at Carnival City. Some people can’t even afford to visit Roseau, let alone Carnival City.
So agree South. Carnival City is a sorry spectacle. I’m staying in the village and have an old fashioned sero. Paying all that money and hassle to go to shabby Pottersville? Not me brother.
How is this lady making a difference? Are we generating profits from her leadership? She needs to go!!!
Time to put an end to that OLD paganistic ritual that blocks progress and keeps our people more and more in the dark…..my opinion of course..