Carnival Dance Artists Training
St Pauls Carnival are continuing with its education programme this weekend (28th April) by offering a professional development workshop for carnival dance artists. Carnival lead artist, Rubba, has enlisted top Caribbean and African dancer and choreographer Sheba Montserrat from London’s Irie Dance Theatre to run Saturday’s session. Sheba was one of the first people in Europe to achieve the pioneering Diploma in Caribbean and African dance. This session aims to provide a supportive network and development opportunity for local artists as part of St Pauls Carnivals ongoing plan to deliver quality artists workshops to young people. By developing relationships with, and investing in local artists, St Pauls Carnival can ensure the future of the schools engagement programme.
Press Release 25th April 2012
St Pauls Afrikan Caribbean Carnival 2012
The board of St Pauls Carnival have reluctantly made the difficult decision to cancel the planned procession based Carnival this year.
The decision has been made following recent meetings and consultations with the community and key delivery partners (Police, Bristol City Council and Arts Council England).
The decision is based on uncertainties over the safety of participants and spectators now that the Carnival has become such a large scale event with up to 100,000 attendees in 2011.
The board will continue to work towards ensuring there is sufficient funding to bring back the full scale St Pauls Carnival in 2013 and look towards continued consultation with, and support from, the local community, fundraisers, promoters and businesses to involve them in the preparation and planning of the 2013 event and future St Pauls Carnivals.
The Carnival will continue with its year round activities in education and costume making focusing on African and Caribbean Arts and Culture and is also involved in events based around London 2012.
The work this year will include;
- The schools engagement programme, providing workshops from dancers, drummers, costume makers, puppet makers and spoken word to schools. Carnival has also appointed a lead artist who, as well as helping identifying local artists for the schools, is offering training in carnival dance for local artists, and is bringing nationally recognised dance tutors from Irie Dance to St Pauls.
- In a new and exciting departure, the Carnival is collaborating with Bristol City Council to make a specially commissioned costume celebrating Bristol’s part in London 2012. The costume will be seen shortly as part of Bristol’s torch relay event on 22 May, and will be part of the Battle for the Winds procession in Weymouth on 28 July, accompanied by 20 schoolchildren from St Paul’s. It will also be part of the closing ceremony and Paralympics event in Bath on 9 September.
- St Pauls Carnival has been successful in gaining additional restricted funding to boost the supplies and materials for Mas camps and for additional masterclasses this year which will broaden the Costume making skills base in Bristol particularly in St Pauls.
- As part of the Carnival’s community consultation and engagement programme, there will be an audio visual project engaging with young people in St Pauls to gauge their perception of the event and the organisation, and ultimately to involve them in the development and sustainability of the organisation.
The results of the recent opinion poll are as follows
Paper poll carried out from the St Pauls Learning Centre on Friday 20th April 2012
22 for a procession based Carnival event: 62 Cancel the St Pauls Carnival 2012:
The count for this poll was facilitated by members of the community, representatives of Voice in the Community, St Pauls Carnival committee members and Councillor John Rogers. All were in accord that the results had been fairly counted and recorded.
Online poll carried out from 18th April date to mid-day on Monday 23rd April are as follows
71 for a procession based Carnival event: 30 Cancel the St Pauls Carnival 2012
A tally of these two opinion polls revealed an almost 50:50 split of
93 for a procession based Carnival event: 92 Cancel the St Pauls Carnival 2012
Thank you to all those who participated in this poll, your time and support is greatly valued.
The results of the recent opinion poll presented a dilemma for the St Pauls Carnival committee who met last night to come to a final decision regarding the 2012 St Pauls Carnival. Deciding factors were the overall safety of participants and particularly the involvement of local schools and children. The board are committed to quality content and education and especially ensuring the safety of St Pauls Carnival attendees. Potential unquantifiable elements on the day the Procession had been scheduled to take place, 7th July, presented health and safety risks, which would be extremely difficult to anticipate. For these reasons the committee have decided the safest option is to cancel the 2012 St Pauls Carnival.
Official Carnival Fundraiser at the Blue Mountain Friday 20th April 10pm – 5am £5 Featuring – Ray Mighty & Peter D Rose, Blackout JA & Noel, Bunjy, Andy Scholes, DJ Dazee, DJ Flora, Snoopy & Big D, Dutty Girl, Alpha & Omega, Addis, Skylion, Mark Dub, Lionpulse Sound, Evermore Sound, Dub Renaissance & Ossia (Peng Sound). To see the flyer click HERE and HERE
If you wish to perform in schools or at fringe events, application forms can be downloaded HERE
Text Donations
To help raise funds for the carnival, we have relaunched our text donation service. You can make a donation simply by texting ‘CARN45‘ followed by the amount you’d like to donate (including £ sign) to 70070. For example, to donate £5 you would send ‘CARN45 £5‘ to 70070.
The text message is free and will not come out of your inclusive messages. St Pauls Carnival (registered charity 1136561) will receive all of your text donation. Please make sure that you have the bill payer’s permission before making this donation.
