Themes

Junkanoo Themes are a big thing these days. For last year’s parade, a special ceremony was held where group representatives announced their themes and read the synopsis, a “short” description of the theme. Well, I wasn’t there, but looking at the official record of group entries, some of these synopses were three and four pages long!

Not like back in the old days when the theme was three words or less: “Arabian Nights”, “Egypt”, “Bahamian flowers”, and was taken from world geography or Bahamian nature. Nowadays, the theme alone is a few phrases long – “World Religions: Icons, symbols and practices of the major religions around the globe: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.”

I especially like to see the contrast between the Boxing Day and New Year’s Day themes. The New Year’s theme always has to be more flexible. You see, on New Year’s the theme has to accommodate those costumes that are being recycled from Boxing Day. Of course everyone says they build all their costumes fresh for New Years, but … The funniest Boxing Day/New Year’s Day pairing was from the year Nelson Mandela was freed. On Boxing Day, the PIGS came with “Let my people go: free Mandela, free South Africa, free the world”. On New Years the came with “Law and Order: we done let everyone go Boxing Day, now we got to lock them back up!”

Anyway, what I really wanted to say that some themes suit some groups better than others. I mean when a particular group comes with a particular theme, watch out – you know they comin tough! Like the Valley, they like Indians (Indigenous North Americans that is). Whenever the Valley brings something from the wild west, they are going to be sharp. Traditionally, the Saxons used to like Egypt – but I remember One Family brought Egypt one year, so I guess the Egypt crew must have come over in the split. Arabia and China were popular in the old days too, but you don’t see them much these days. Now, everyone likes the Bible – but you can’t just bring the Bible anytime, that’s like your trump card. You got to save that till when you need it most, when you really have to do something special. Like the Saxons did a couple of years back after taking fourth the previous year. And now these days when you bring the Bible, to really lick the competition with the wrath of God, you bring it on Boxing Day and New Year’s: Boxing Day might be “Exodus” (that’s a particularly good one, because then you could throw some Egypt in there too), then New Year’s could be “Stepping to the Promised Land” (for that, you have the golden calf, Moses, the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant, Joshua, etc). You just have to plan the thing right.

Since independence, Bahamian themes have been popular: flora and fauna; under the sea; national heroes; tourism (this one always puzzled me, as it doesn’t really lend itself to nice complex costumes. Nevertheless, I can remember countless PI bridges, coral worlds, straw markets – more than one in the same parade, even); money.

Every now and then a group will excecute a theme that is groundbreaking. I can remember in the eighties, someone brought a presentation on Law and Order. It was the “free” dancers that made an impression on me. They had defense force officers crawling along the ground with their weapons as real officers would do in basic training; they had police officers chasing down crooks and locking them up; they had supreme court judges and magistrates issuing rulings. This was the first time I can remember that a group went to such lengths to dramatize the theme.

Then you had the Valley “Wild, Wild West” in the nineties – not a new theme but groundbreaking nonetheless. The presentation was outstanding: the free dancers were dressed as cowboys, but instead of junkanoo skirts they had a 3D horse attached to their waist, so it looked like they were riding. The real innovation was musical. Prior to this parade, groups chose songs that went well with the junkanoo beat: recent soca and Bahamian popular songs, upbeat gospel songs. But when the Valley hit Rawson Square and started to lick off “Buffalo Soldier” the parade was over. You see, before this, groups looked for popular songs that fit the beat and hope that the song was relevant to the theme. This was the first time that a group took a song that was thematically relevant, but not really suited to the junkanoo beat and adapted it to Junkanoo.

Still my favorite presentation of all time (I might be biased because I belong to One Family) was “Splendors of the Deep”. I’m still not sure whose brainchild this one was or whether it was a collaboration, but I still remember that as a high-water mark of costume design. All the costumes for that parade were 3D, the conch shells for the drummers, the crawfish for the ‘bellers, the lead pieces – I remember the reef costume, there was no real back nor front to it, things were going happening all round the costume. What stands out most was the Lion Fish – that was a frame dancer costume (you don’t see frame dancers as much these days). The lion fish, like all the costumes was a 3D replica of the real thing. All the arms and fins were moving and brilliantly colored. The big costumes had minimal use of decoration, just glitter to highlight the workmanship. Everything was 3D and everything was moving. My only regret is that because I was actually rushing in that parade I never got to see the full presentation live. Watching it on TV later, I was speechless. Of course these are only my memories, coloured as they are with by own peculiar bias. I would love to hear from you about your favorite themes.