Uniting the World!

Carnival arts open the door to a world of self-expression and exploration; a unique place where we can seek out our roots and develop new forums for uniting the planet’s bountiful cultures. A place for discovering what we all have in common, and celebrating what makes us different. The power and creativity that underlies these art forms can transform lives.

Where did the word ‘Carnival’ come from?
Hundreds of years ago, the followers of the Catholic faith in Italy started the tradition of holding a wild costume festival right before the first day of Lent. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival ‘Carnevale’ which means ‘put away the meat’. As time passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous; and eventually the practice spread to France, Spain, and the other Catholic countries in Europe. When the French, Spanish, and Portuguese began to take control of the Americas and other parts of the world, they brought with them their tradition of celebrating carnival.

African Influences on Carnival Traditions.
Important to Caribbean and South American festival arts are the ancient African traditions of parading and moving in circles through cities, towns and villages in costumes and masks. Circling urban connotations is believed to bring good fortune, to heal problems and to chill out any angry relatives who had passed into the next world. Carnival traditions also borrow from the African tradition of putting together natural objects (bones, grasses, beads, shells, fabric) to create a piece of sculpture, a mask, or costume – with each object or combination of objects representing a certain idea or spiritual force.

Africans frequently used feathers on masks and headdresses as symbols of our ability as humans to rise above problems, pains, heartbreaks, and illness – to travel to another world to be reborn and to grow spiritually. Today, we see feathers used in many, many forms in carnival costumes.

African dance and music traditions transformed the early carnival celebrations in the Americas, as African drum rhythms, large puppets, stick fighters, and stilt dancers began to make their appearances in the carnival festivities.

In many parts of the world, where Catholic Europeans set up colonies and entered the slave trade, carnival took root. Brazil, once a Portuguese colony, is famous for its carnival, as is Mardi Gras in New Orleans (where African-Americans mixed with French sellers and Native Americans). Carnival celebrations are now found throughout the Caribbean in Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada, Dominica, Haiti, Cuba, St Thomas, St. Marten; in Central and South America in Belize, Panama, Brazil: and in North America, Canada and Europe.