Deb­bie Ja­cob

It's a mas band with a sto­ry to tell. K2K Al­liance and Part­ners is an ul­tra-mod­ern, fash­ion-con­scious Car­ni­val state­ment for bold mas­quer­aders who want to play mas and be part of a sto­ry in the tra­di­tion of Car­ni­val mas as street the­atre. On Au­gust 9, K2K heads in­to its sec­ond Car­ni­val of­fer­ing with its 2013 Car­ni­val launch of The Hu­man Race, at the Queen's Hall, from 8.30–10.30 pm. Karen and Kathy Nor­man de­signed this year's band as a con­tin­u­a­tion of last year's 2012 theme of Seas of Con­scious­ness, a saga of achiev­ing one's dreams and forg­ing one's des­tiny that earned first place in the Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry in the Down­town com­pe­ti­tion. "Last year it was about get­ting to dif­fer­ent lev­els of con­scious­ness, be­ing aware of our lives and how we think about the de­ci­sions we make," says Dawn Richards, a spokesman for the band. "This year we're mov­ing to a more en­light­ened state of con­scious­ness."

Once again K2K will fea­ture a band with three sec­tions and 600 mas­quer­aders.

For 2013, The Hu­man Race will con­tin­ue the sto­ry, with the band be­ing por­trayed as a horse race with the mas­quer­ad­er por­tray­ing char­ac­ters in each of three sec­tions: the crowd, the thor­ough­bred and the jock­ey. "Each sec­tion will present a seg­ment of the con­cept of stand­ing strong, fac­ing ad­ver­si­ty, shoot­ing for the stars and not con­form­ing to so­ci­ety's con­cept of the path to suc­cess, but to cre­at­ing one's own path to suc­cess," says Richards. "It's about be­ing clear in the choic­es we make and cre­at­ing choic­es that are spe­cif­ic to our own per­son­al cir­cum­stances and not just be­ing led by so­ci­ety. So­ci­ety im­pos­es a lot of choic­es on us, and we need to think for our­selves."

The sur­prise is how the sec­tions come to­geth­er to de­pict an over­all state­ment about The Hu­man Race. Richard­son says K2K is a unique brand with three pil­lars: the mas­quer­ade band-which is part of life; the cou­ture col­lec­tion that makes up the mas while ty­ing in­to fash­ion and the char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion that will con­tribute to an at-risk teen or­gan­i­sa­tion. "The mas fea­tures in­tri­cate de­signs, fine, hand-made cos­tumes that cross over to fash­ion that you could see on a run­way," says Richards."The band is de­signed to make you feel like you're not just play­ing mas. You're re­flect­ing fash­ion. Each cos­tume fea­tures qual­i­ty fab­ric, bead­ing, much hand­work-lay­ered looks that cap­ture a mod­ern feel for a retro-idea: Car­ni­val as cos­tumes fit for street the­atre."

As for the third pil­lar of the K2K brand, the char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion, Richards says, "We're tar­get­ing at-risk teens. We're cur­rent­ly de­cid­ing which char­i­ty the band will make a do­na­tion to. The idea is to em­pow­er young peo­ple and give mas­quer­aders the re­ward of giv­ing back to so­ci­ety. Again, it's meant to re­mind mas­quer­aders of that con­nec­tion be­tween mas and life." The launch promis­es to be a "gala event with a mag­nif­i­cent artis­tic pro­duc­tion in which the cos­tumes will be re­vealed, fol­lowed by a cock­tail re­cep­tion and up-close view­ing of the cos­tumes and the unique sto­ries of the race of life, be­ing told by each sec­tion." "K2K is a band that ap­peals to the dis­cern­ing mas­quer­ad­er who is look­ing for a por­tray­al that is root­ed in a dis­tinct, unique and mem­o­rable sto­ry that is told through breath­tak­ing cos­tumes and a mem­o­rable mas play­ing ex­pe­ri­ence." Band mem­bers can al­so look for­ward to sur­prise ameni­ties. Last year there was a rolling spa in an air-con­di­tioned ve­hi­cle that of­fered foot mas­sages for aching feet. "We're go­ing to ex­pand this year," says Richards. K2K's mas camp is lo­cat­ed at 22 Ole­an­der Road, Vic­to­ria Gar­dens, where in­ter­est­ed mas­quer­aders can view the sec­tions from Au­gust 13. Cos­tumes are with­in the medi­um to large band cos­tume prices.

For more in­for­ma­tion about tick­ets for the launch, con­tact Dawn Richards at 686 3150.