NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (JUNE 14, 2013) – Seba Jones the chairperson for the Junior Street Parade for Culturama 2013 says it is scheduled to take place from 1 p.m. on Tuesday, August 6, 2013 in Charlestown. The parade will begin at the Nevis Cultural Centre and the troupes will proceed through Charlestown and culminate at the Nevis Cultural Complex where their performances can be seen. Ms Jones is no stranger to the annual cultural activities, having been crowned Miss Culture 2000.
She said the parade would feature a wide variety of costumes and an amazing 203 students would be participating in this year’s parade with the largest contingents from the Charlestown Primary and the St. Thomas’ Primary schools. Assisting her are Rifka Maycock-Harding and Didier Rohan.
Jones also explained that this year’s participation is the best the committee has seen in years. All but three schools, namely, the Lynn Jeffers, Maude Cross Preparatory and Belle View International schools would be involved.
According to Jones, the judging aspect of the parade was eliminated this year which may have resulted in the large participation.
“We had a group meeting with all the teachers and I presented that idea to them and they were actually pleased with it. Over the years they have had that judging section in the overall concept of the junior parade. Especially when you have to present them with a theme and have them go out and get their own concept of what the theme is, some schools came out looking better than some so they were quite pleased that that aspect was taken out. My overall thing was to have all schools participate and once you eliminated that aspect of it, they were all on board,” Jones said.
In speaking about the costumes, Jones acknowledged Kamara Louisy who assisted her tremendously. Rifka Maycock, she added, also helped to bring the committee’s ideas to paper with sketches of the costumes themed “Nevis Nice,” which will be tailored by Banker Mas Camp out of St. Kitts.
“What I really wanted to do this year was to take the stress away from the teachers. I appreciate the fact that they have a lot of stuff on their plate, Tests of Standard,overall exams. To present them with a theme to have them go out and come up with something on their own, I did not want that for them. So what we decided was to create an overall theme, divided that theme into sub-sections and we go to them and have them hand-pick, in a sense, what they would like to be a part of,” she said.
Jones added that the three sub-themes would be further divided into sections with the goal of highlighting the “local aspects that make Nevis nice.”
Theme one is “Agriculture” which would involve participants wearing costumes depicting Green Leafy Vegetables, Pumpkin and Mango. Costumes for theme two,which is “Flora,”would depict the Poinciana, Hibiscus and Sugar Cane. The third theme,“Sea,” would depict the Brown Pelican.
Private groups wishing to enter the parade are welcomed to do so by contacting Jones, through the Nevis Culturama Secretariat at (869) 469-1992/0119.
Photo caption: Seba Jones (right), chairperson of the 2013 Nevis Culturama Festival Junior Parade Committee, showing costume sketches to Jaedee Caines (left) of the Department of Information, during an interview on June 13, 2013