FAMALAY! 11th annual Carnival Arts Conference

Name: FAMALAY! 11th annual Carnival Arts Conference
Start: 2025-03-06T08:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-03-08T22:00:00-04:00
Location: Port Of Spain, Trinidad

Schedule

Thu, 06 Mar, 2025 at 08:00 am to Sat, 08 Mar, 2025 at 10:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Port Of Spain, Trinidad | Port Of Spain, PO

From Lord Nelson singing about Tobago hospitality in “One Family” (1982) to Bunji Garlin expanding the theme to include different races and nationalities in “One Family” (2004) to the Skinny Fabulous’, Machel Montano’s, and Bunji Garlin’s collaboration, “Famalay!” (2019), there is a strong claim to make that carnival artists, scholars, and enthusiasts belong to a massive, multicultural, multiethnic, multinational extended family. As with any family, what binds us together are our interconnections—the relationships and bonds we share - as well as our reconnections - rediscovering our similarities.
In the aftermath of World War II, the Caribbean experienced significant waves of migration to Europe, in particular England, and North America. The pivotal voyage of the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) to England and France, as well as Esso Tripoli to the USA and Canada, served as catalysts for these new diasporic communities, instilling a renewed sense of confidence as they embarked on journeys to articulate their presence in these newfound homelands. Notably, the carnivals that have since evolved in these diasporic locales have grown exponentially, matching the scale of their counterparts in its homeland in Trinidad and Tobago. The forthcoming 11th conference is poised to investigate the intricate cultural ties between these diasporic communities and their respective homelands, examining the manner in which these connections manifest and develop as the diaspora establishes itself in these new abodes, and expanding the culture to other locations.
The 11th conference invites you to contribute to the celebration of our interconnectedness - our shared history, practices, and world view - as well as the continuous act of reconnection regionally and internationally. We are looking for scholarly, artistic, and performance-based interpretations of the Carnival Family dynamics.