Still dancin' in the street

>> Carifiesta celebrates 27 years of Caribbean culture. So why doesn't it get more government and corporate support?

by SCOTT C

As Montreal finally heats up just in time for festival season, the familiar colours and rhythms of Carifiesta are just around the corner. Although this diverse cultural celebration takes over the city for a few days every summer, many people don't know that this year marks the 27th anniversary of the Carifiesta parade in Montreal. The event annually unites all corners of the city's Caribbean community, as well as the participation of numerous other cultural groups, making it one of the summer's most anticipated happenings.

The parade, which started back in 1974, was originally called Carifête. After a violent incident in 1993, involving a member of a Montreal-North Haitian gang called the Bo-Gars, the next year's parade didn't even happen. This random, unrelated occurrence, coupled with some shots fired at Parc Lafontaine during 1990's celebration, single-handedly crippled the credibility of previous Carifête organizers to conduct a peaceful event, resulting in its subsequent cancellation in 1994. In 1995, some new organizers, the Caribbean Cultural Festivities Association, re-invented the parade as Carifiesta and pretty much take care of making it all happen to this day.

"I think every year is important," explains Pat Dillon. "It's the one large artistic festival from the black anglophone community that illustrates our ability to be cultural producers. People can look at this event as merely dancing in the streets, but it's much more than that. There's so much volunteer participation and creativity that's put into it, and that's done for the love of it, for the most part."

Dillon is a co-leader for the Junior band in the Roots Cultural Association, a group that has been participating in Montreal's Caribbean celebration for 23 years. Having won the title of "Band of the Year" over a dozen times, Roots' involvement in the parade is a given every year. Several bands just like Roots compete every year for coveted titles. Each band has an appointed leader and several followers, all of whom adorn themselves with vibrant, colourful costumes depicting a certain theme. While the parade works its way through the city, the various bands are judged by a panel that sits in a prime spot on the parade route, with the winners announced later in the festivities.

Thorny sensationalism

Although this yearly event has become a fixture in the summer happenings of Montreal, it's important to point out that with all the tourists and vacation revenues that Carifiesta brings to Montreal, there still seems to be a lack of both corporate and government support.

"When we go out to the mainstream for corporate donations, we're still having to explain what exactly Carifiesta is," says Dillon, "and there's really no reason for it. I mean this has been going on for 27 years, and even though there's been a lot of administrative changes over the years, the parade itself has been incident-free for the last six years."

It's safe to say that the sensationalism of Carifiesta's few negative incidents have become a thorn in its side, but things are changing very slowly. The fact that these two unfortunate events will not be forgotten is completely absurd. St-Jean Baptiste is a full-on holiday where hooligans get drunk in the street, break everything in sight and go looking for skirmishes with the police, and yet major events happen in conjunction with this day every year, and the money's always there.

"You have thousands of Caribbean people in the street at jump-up," says Dillon, "and two people out of those thousands have created some trouble that has marred this event that, for the most part, has been very peaceful. It's sad, but we keep going."

Much like Montreal's celebration, various incidents of violence led to the removal of Toronto's Caribana parade from the downtown core. However, because of its international notoriety as being North America's biggest and best jump-up party, Toronto has no problem attracting both corporate and government participation in its yearly event.

"I remember when Montreal used to be the jump-up spot when I was a girl," laughs Dillon. "But then it moved to Toronto and stayed there. I still think that we have something on Toronto, though. Maybe we don't get the same help that they do, or the financial support, but we haven't been relegated to a side-street out of the city and down by the lake. We still have a road party that goes through the heart of the city, where it belongs." :

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