PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

For the first time ever, a Caribbean-style Car­ni­val will be held in Dubai from No­vem­ber 29 to De­cem­ber 2, 2024.

The event was con­cep­tu­alised by Trinida­di­an Shas­tra Ma­haraj af­ter she vis­it­ed the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates in 2021 for a Unit­ed Na­tions Con­fer­ence.

“The city’s trans­for­ma­tion from a mod­est fish­ing vil­lage in­to a glob­al me­trop­o­lis is a tes­ta­ment to vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship, strate­gic in­vest­ments, and a com­mit­ment to cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty. Un­like many oth­er re­gions, Dubai em­braced its di­ver­si­ty, turn­ing it in­to a strength.

“Arabs, In­di­ans, Africans, Eu­ro­peans, and peo­ple from all cor­ners of the world co-ex­ist and cel­e­brate their cul­tures in har­mo­ny, re­flect­ed in the city’s vi­brant night life. The pletho­ra of cul­tur­al el­e­ments in­fused in­to Dubai and the UAE is what gives life to Dubai. To me, Dubai rep­re­sent­ed an ide­al­is­tic ver­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ma­haraj told Guardian Me­dia.

“How­ev­er, as a Caribbean na­tion­al, I no­ticed one thing miss­ing—the Caribbean in­flu­ence of so­ca mu­sic and greater Caribbean food op­tions. Car­ni­val is a vi­brant cel­e­bra­tion that re­flects the Caribbean’s di­verse cul­tur­al her­itage, blend­ing African, Eu­ro­pean, and in­dige­nous tra­di­tions in­to a unique and colour­ful ta­pes­try. What bet­ter place to share our cul­ture than on one of the most pro­gres­sive and in­no­v­a­tive stages in the world?

“I saw Dubai as the per­fect in­ter­na­tion­al plat­form to el­e­vate and ex­pand on this vi­sion of ex­port­ing our Car­ni­val to the Mid­dle East. This led to the reg­is­tra­tion and in­cor­po­ra­tion of DREAM Car­ni­val En­ter­tain­ment Co Ltd, in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) and its Busi­ness Cham­ber. DREAM Car­ni­val’s mis­sion is to rep­re­sent Caribbean cul­ture,” she said.

Over the past cou­ple of years, Ma­haraj has reached out to var­i­ous stake­hold­ers to make the event tran­si­tion from idea to re­al­i­ty. Part of the process was helped along by crick­et star Dwayne Bra­vo.

“I be­gan by con­nect­ing with Caribbean ex­pat com­mu­ni­ties, ex­plor­ing the nec­es­sary li­cences and ap­provals, and build­ing a ground team who shared my ex­cite­ment and vi­sion. I al­so start­ed in­tro­duc­ing so­ca mu­sic to night­clubs through res­i­dent DJs who were con­tacts of mine. Along the way, I con­nect­ed with like-mind­ed Caribbeans in the busi­ness, in­clud­ing DJ Crown Prince, whom I was in­tro­duced to by Dwayne Bra­vo—one of the ear­ly sup­port­ers of my vi­sion. Bra­vo’s en­thu­si­asm and con­nec­tions with­in the in­dus­try were in­valu­able as I nav­i­gat­ed this new ven­ture.”

His in­flu­ence al­lowed her to grow her con­nec­tions in the Mid­dle East­ern coun­try as well as so­lid­i­fy part­ner­ships with oth­er en­ter­tain­ment stake­hold­ers in Car­ni­val.

“These ef­forts led to the cur­rent part­ner­ship with Kwe­si “Hy­pa Hop­py” Hop­kin­son, the dy­nam­ic force be­hind SCORCH, a lead­ing en­ter­tain­ment brand in the Caribbean that prides it­self on en­gag­ing in strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tions to push Caribbean cul­ture. SCORCH is known for set­ting trends and push­ing the bound­aries of event pro­duc­tion, with a vi­sion of ex­pand­ing its in­flu­ence glob­al­ly, and its eyes were al­ready fo­cused on ex­e­cut­ing events in Dubai in the near fu­ture. Their team had al­ready ex­e­cut­ed a small-scale ver­sion of their well-known ‘Duck­work‘ last year as part of Sea­sons Week­end, and in­ter­est was placed on grow­ing the SCORCH brand in Dubai,” she ex­plained.

With the im­port of the Scorch team, her ini­tial vi­sion of a taste of Caribbean Car­ni­val has evolved in­to a three-day event with ad­di­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties serv­ing as a pre­cur­sor. The event will fea­ture sev­er­al well-known names along the Car­ni­val cir­cuit—such as Tribe (Trinidad), Ron­nie and Caro (Trinidad), Fog An­gels (To­ba­go), Krave (Bar­ba­dos), Xo­dus (Ja­maica), and De­sign­er Anya Elias (Trinidad).

How­ev­er, she ex­plained that due to bud­get con­straints, the first Car­ni­val is set to be more stream­lined de­spite re­cent as­sis­tance from bmo­bile to push the event.

“How­ev­er, due to bud­getary lim­i­ta­tions, the first year of the Dubai Caribbean Car­ni­val will fo­cus on a more stream­lined ver­sion of this vi­sion. The event will fea­ture a few care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed food sta­tions high­light­ing lo­cal Trinida­di­an cui­sine, op­er­at­ed by the venue it­self. The car­ni­val meals for the mas­quer­aders will be catered by Miss Lily’s, a well-known Ja­maican restau­rant in Dubai.

“This scaled-down ap­proach still promis­es to de­liv­er an au­then­tic taste of the Caribbean, with hopes that lo­cal reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies will recog­nise the event’s val­ue and sup­port its ex­pan­sion in the fu­ture. In light of the afore­men­tioned, a key men­tion of ap­pre­ci­a­tion goes out to bmo­bile, a di­vi­sion of TSTT, who very will­ing­ly jumped in as a spon­sor re­cent­ly,” she ex­plained.

To fur­ther add a Caribbean flavour to the event, the Dubai Car­ni­val team has arranged trav­el pack­ages start­ing at US$1,999 for peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in tak­ing part in the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence. The team is of­fer­ing five-day and sev­en-day trav­el pack­ages for the event.

Some of the artistes tak­ing part in the event are:

• Machel Mon­tano

• Bee­nie Man

• Nailah Black­man

• DJ Ana and Ul­tra Sim­mo

• OS­OC­I­TY

• DJ Crown Prince

• DJ Ranger

• DJ Scot­tie B

• DJ Ro­ry Dankers

• DJ Puffy

Mean­while, the fea­tured events for the Car­ni­val are:

• Scorch Duck­work: Fri­day, No­vem­ber 29, 5 pm-mid­night. Venue: FIVE, Jumeirah Vil­lage

• Dream Car­ni­val Mas Pa­rade: Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 30, 10 am-4 pm. Venue: JA The Re­sort

• Fete­land Dubai: Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 30, 7 pm-3 am. Venue: Barasti Beach Club

• Colour­land Dubai: Mon­day, De­cem­ber 2, 2 pm-10 pm. Venue: Barasti Beach Club

Ma­haraj said she would be in­ter­est­ed in bring­ing the event to oth­er Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries.

“This in­au­gur­al event marks the be­gin­ning of a new chap­ter in the glob­al ex­pan­sion of Caribbean cul­ture, and with the sup­port and recog­ni­tion it de­serves, the Dubai Caribbean Car­ni­val is poised to be­come a cor­ner­stone of cul­tur­al ex­change be­tween the Caribbean and the UAE that res­onates with au­di­ences world­wide.

“A few peo­ple have al­ready asked, ‘Where else in the Mid­dle East are you look­ing at?’ The an­swer is Qatar and Sau­di Ara­bia, and work has al­ready be­gun to make this a re­al­i­ty in the up­com­ing fu­ture,” she said.