The celebration of Caribana precedes the parade and boisterous, night-time receptions. It begins in the preparation, during the donning of costumes, with the painting of faces, and in practicing of dance steps which dazzle both the judges and crowd. It is a time to socialize, laugh, and appreciate the fantastic results of innumerable hours of labour, removed from the scrutiny of the public eye. Before the call to “get in ya section”, the herald’s call to fall into one’s thematic group, most take the opportunity to drink, eat, and check out the competition.

‘Making Mas’ is the gargantuan task of sewing, cutting, and gluing the costumes of Caribana. It all happens in a Mas Camp, a space where the excitement, passion, and solidarity, so evident during the festival itself, are born.

Mas Camp ended each day in a meeting where issues such as racism and domestic abuse were candidly discussed. A psychologist and Executive Director of ‘Dr. Roz’s Healing Place’, a women’s shelter in Scarborough, Dr. Roz’s informed perspectives underscored not only the nature of these blights but, more importantly, how such problems are factors in everyone’s lives.

Taking the stage where the judges preside is an exhilarating experience. Each section of the Mas Band performs for roughly sixty seconds then withdraws. But this is not the end to Caribana; it is its inauguration, a time when the true essence of Carnival and Playing Mas can be most fully appreciated. Each band stays together along the 3.6 km parade route, but loosely, allowing masqueraders to mingle with other participants and the public.

The King costume begins with a welded, pyramidal base (on wheels), on which an aluminum and fibreglass frame eventually sits. A lightweight red cloth is glued to this mounting. After, the labourious task of cutting and gluing the hundreds of individual flames is undertaken. The centrepiece of the costume, the menacing dragon’s head, is airbrushed, molded foam.

This costume is fitted to a steel frame on which three main aluminum sections attach. These parts, covered with an airy fabric, are painstakingly decorated with beads, sequins, and jewels. Strong wire provides the skeleton for the elaborately decorated vagina and hanging lanterns.