The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

If there is one thing the recent Junkanoo parades have demonstrated to us is that they are too long. Beautiful, spectacular, but long. Twelve and thirteen hours for one event is too arduous for both the Junkanoo groups and the public who come to enjoy the spectacle that is Junkanoo and to cheer on their favourite group.

There are five A category groups not counting the Music Makers. If a group should pick numbers four or five they have to wait around for five or six hours before they get out of the whole or onto the route. The fans waiting for their favorite group must also wait hours inclusive of long gap periods between the groups.

A few years ago, I wrote a letter making some suggestions of how we could reduce the hours of a single parade, spread the Junkanoo season over a longer period of time and make the Junkanoo season more exciting. I will restate many of those same points in this letter. Commonsense should win out.

I suggested a Junkanoo season or festival that will begin with the picking of entry numbers and end with an awards ceremony where the results of the parades are disclosed for the first time. The festival will also include junior Junkanoo (remember that), a B Division parade, an A Division parade, a dance-off between all the choreograph dancers and a street parade where fans must buy and wear t-shirts and other group paraphernalia in order to participate.

The choosing and announcement of the entry numbers for the groups should begin the season and should increase the anticipation and buzz surrounding Junkanoo. At the announcement of the entry order of groups, members of each group should give synopsis of their presentation on Bay. This will heighten the fever pitch even further.

Junior Junkanoo should be the next event where the Junkanoo culture is re-introduced and inculcated into students and also into the schools’ curriculum. The schools should choose their themes and assign the students to work on their costumes over the summer break. When school reconvenes in August or September the costumes could be embellished and group work on the banner and other aspects of the presentation is done.

I sincerely believe that the A and B categories should have separate parades. I understand that there are some twenty B Category groups and I believe that the B groups are now at the level where they can support having their own parade. If you include the Music Makers and the Prodigal Sons in the B Division as the quality of their presentations are much closer to the B Division groups than they are to the A Division groups, I am confident that a separate B division parade is sustainable. In time their parades will be as exciting and competitive as the A category division.

The separation of the two parades will almost eliminate the waiting time between the groups, give the fans the opportunity to see three or four full laps of their favorite group. This would allow the A groups to have the streets for themselves. The parade of five groups would open up more opportunities to put together a television package of the parade and sell the package to the public and to global markets.

We saw in the Boxing Day Parade and the One Family presentation the influence, impact and power that the choreograph section could play in the overall impression of a group. I have always promoted the idea of a dance-off for the choreograph dancers for all the groups. The ladies are a bit constrained by their costumes and the restricted space on Bay St. A dance-off competition for the dancers would remove these restrictions on an open dance floor or stage. I think that the Junkanoo community would enjoy and support this event.

Now perhaps the most controversial of my suggestions is the street parade on New Year’s Day. A non-competitive parade would close out the Junkanoo rushes. I propose that the street rush-out though not competitive will be regulated and controlled. Each group will be required to rush behind a banner and fans wishing to join in the rush with their favorite group will be required to purchase a group t-shirt thereby generating additional revenue for the groups. Each group will have a stall on the cultural section of Fish Fry to sell their wares and paraphernalia for the duration of the festival.

The festival should end with an awards ceremony. The ceremony should be held within two or three days after the street rush-out. The results must be withheld until this time. My experiences with past awards ceremony have been that the group that has the most wins (say first place both Boxing Day and New Years) will have the most fans at the awards ceremony. If the results are withheld for a few days, no one knows who won and since all groups believe that they ought to have won, the ceremony which should be in the format of the Oscars, Tonys or Grammys will be well attended.

These suggestions are not groundbreaking or revolutionary, but I believe that they could start real discussions on the improvement of the parades for both Junkanooers and fans. Tickets for all the events could be packaged for all the events or could be sold as single events. One competitive parade should allow groups to invest more resources and time into one parade. It would give the winner of the parade bragging rights for a year rather one group wins Boxing Day and another group wins New Year’s Day and enjoy bragging rights for a year without having won the big one. I have other ideas one of which is one general theme for the parades where the creativity and innovation of the artists could be more apparent when you compare apples with apples. However, I hope I have given some food for thought.

MAURICE TYNES

Nassau,

January 3, 2023.