Nevis masqueraders Performing At CARIFESTA X 2008
“One Caribbean, One Purpose, Our Culture, Our Life” is the theme of this year’s festival.
The fun is not over yet… CARIFESTA X 2008 runs from August 22 - August 31st!
CARIFESTA stands for the Caribbean Festival of Arts. It is the region’s roving, multidisciplinary, mega arts festival which attracts a wide range of creative artists from various Caribbean and Latin American Countries.
CARIFESTA was the culmination of the idea that started in 1970 when participants at an Artists and Writers Convention in Guyana complained about the absence of an outlet to showcase the rich cultural heritage of the Region and at the same time give recognition to its outstanding artists and art forms.
Check out the awesome Carifesta X website to learn more about this Caribbean uniting festival… 
See the Guyana Photos and Guyana Videos as well.
When the Caribbean Festival of Arts ,CARIFESTA kicked off in Guyana on Thursday, a contingent of young masqueraders from Nevis are taking part in forming a part of the celebration.
Minister with responsibility for Culture in the Nevis Island Administration (NIA), Hensley Daniel said there was a distinct effort placed on masquerades and assured that the group of young persons selected, would make Nevis proud.
“I think the folklore group will form the focus of attention during the CARIFESTA exposition and so we have put together a team of masquerades. Anybody who knows Nevis’ culture would know that the masquerade is at the top of our folklore list and so we have sent a group of young masquerades from across the island.”
“We have put a group of them together and I think I should say to the public they have been practicing over the last six weeks preparing for this and so we expect them to do quite well… and I think that our young people who have been selected to participate in the Caribbean Festival of Arts in Guyana, will do Nevis proud and I look forward to hearing great things about their performance he said.”
Read more here at caribbeannetnews.com
CARIFESTA has traveled throughout the Caribbean for the past 36 years, of which the Island of Nevis has been a part. Since the inaugural festival took place in Guyana in 1972, it moved to Jamaica in 1976; Cuba in ‘79; Barbados in 81.Trinidad and Tobago led a revival in 1992 and followed up in 1995 (and again in 2006); St. Kitts and Nevis in 2000 and Suriname in 2003.
The aim of the Caribbean Festival of Arts is to depict the life of the people of the Region, their heroes, morale, myth, traditions, beliefs, creativeness and way of expression; to show the similarities and differences of the people of the Caribbean generally; to create a climate in which art can flourish so that artists would be encouraged to return to their homeland; and to awaken a regional identity in Literature.
Let the good times roll, Nevis Island Style Becca Briley
