Gillian Moore

He told the guests at the St Au­gus­tine venue, who had braved heavy rains on the night of Feb­ru­ary 10 to sup­port the ven­ture, that the idea for Jou­vay Ay­i­ti was in­spired by the earth­quake that dev­as­tat­ed the is­land in 2010. He said more than 50 Hait­ian stu­dents had been adopt­ed in­to the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus com­mu­ni­ty, fol­low­ing the dis­as­ter. George said Haiti was im­por­tant to the her­itage of the re­gion and calledthe is­land "the Mud­der of civil­i­sa­tion," mak­ing a pun on the J'Ou­vert theme.

He said in keep­ing with T&T and Hait­ian Car­ni­val tra­di­tions, all cos­tumes should make a per­son­al state­ment and be craft­ed from re­cy­cled, found and nat­ur­al ma­te­ri­als. He al­so cau­tioned that J'Ou­vert mud should com­ple­ment, not mar, the de­signs. Guests were treat­ed to sev­er­al cul­tur­al pre­sen­ta­tions, in­clud­ing per­for­mances by singers Ba­by Pink and Am­ri­ka Ma­troo and sailor mas. Hait­ian Rara dancers al­so per­formed.

They will be fea­tured in the up­com­ing the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion, Here is my Ass Now Try to Whip It, open­ing on March 25 at UWI's Learn­ing Re­source Cen­tre. A tra­di­tion­al Guyanese Fowl Cock, fash­ioned from bam­boo and chick­en feed bags, al­so made an ap­pear­ance. George not­ed that this year's Old Yard event (for­mer­ly Viey la Cou), to be staged at the DC­FA on Feb­ru­ary 27 from 12 noon, would high­light Guyanese tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val tra­di­tions.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on Jou­vay Ay­i­ti,

con­tact Maris­sa Brooks at663-2222 or maris­sa.brooks@sta.uwi.edu