By Lincoln DePradine

In keeping with the current summer carnival season, a group of people – many of them workers on lunch break – gathered at an outdoor space Tuesday in downtown Toronto to enjoy the arts of carnival, including masquerading, calypso and steelpan.

It was a first-time event, titled “A Celebration of Carnival History’’, conceptualized by the Canadian Multicultural Inventors Museum (CMIM).

CMIM’s Francis Jeffers, who co-curated the event with playwright, actress, educator and award-winning cultural and social activist, Amah Harris, said the intent was not just for spectator entertainment.

It also was to dispel “a lot of misconceptions about carnival history’’, including “African culture and its influence on the Caribbean’’, and on the “origin of masquerade and all the various aspects of carnival’’, he explained.

“The Canadian Multicultural Inventors Museum, we take a holistic view to science, technology, engineering, math, arts and so on,’’ Jeffers told The Caribbean Camera.

“We brought together the academic aspect of carnival with the practical and show part of carnival. We mend everything; we don’t separate any of these things, and that was the concept which Amah and myself worked on.’’

Tuesday’s event included African-derived dance and costuming of various Caribbean countries, as well as costume-parading from young Toronto masqueraders.

Among them was 13-year-old J’Naya Ryan, whose Martin Scott-Pascal-designed “Queen of the African Dancer’’ costume won her the recently held under-16 Junior Female Individual title at the 2023 Toronto Caribbean Carnival.

The one-hour “Celebration of Carnival History’’ was held at the TD Centre on Wellington Street West.

Organizers, said Jeffers, “were fortunate’’ that property owners, Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd., “wanted to do something for the carnival season’’, and allowed the use of the space for the event.

What the “Celebration of Carnival History’’ particularly aimed to showcase, according to Jeffers, was the diversity within the Caribbean region – from Guyana in the south and including countries such as the Dominican Republic, Belize Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao – and also to highlight the strand, energy and “spirit of resilience and liberation’’ embodied in cultural arts such as the Trinidad and Francophone experiences, Salsa, Merengue, Jab and Zouk.

It’s a history, said Jeffers, “that is Pan-Caribbean’’ and “Pan-African’’.

“We’re looking at carnival arts in a very holistic form. From ancient Kemet, you think of Imhotep – the world’s first multi-genius – who was an engineer; he was a scribe, he was an architect, he was a priest, he was an administrator. The point is, that we bring our fullness of who we are into everything we do,’’ Jeffers said.

“It’s a celebration of who we are, what we are, what we represent. It’s all about unity, it’s all about people understanding their history, understanding their place in history, understanding that there’s absolutely no reason to put their heads down.’’

What still remains, said Jeffers, is “how do we transform that energy in the music and stuff like that to the academics, to the research, to A.I., to robotics’’.

 Jeffers said he was satisfied with the inaugural “Celebration of Carnival History’’.

“The Canadian Multicultural Inventors Museum, we’ll want to do more of that,’’ he said.