St. Martin/St. Maarten Carnival/ Carnaval 2009
Held April 16 to May 04 2009, City- Philipsburg (Dutch colony) St. Maarten Island (south) / City- Marigot (French colony) St. Martin Island (north) in Caribbean, Annually, free of cost (no any tickets)
The Jump-Up parades consists of live bands, floats and vibrantly shining costumed female dancers exposing their figure in a vulgar way, dressed up like fairy tale characters were the biggest Carnival magnetism, the same as Caribbean Queen Pageant. The longest of the demonstration was the Grand Carnival Parade. It showed ornately dressed up Carnival ensembles twisting the length of a four miles (6.5kms) path. Sandwiched between parades, overwhelming crowds were kept amused by steel drum bands also by stand-up comedians coming from all over the Caribbean. About half million people seen it and approximately 9000 inhabitants participated in it.
In St. Martin Carnival 2009 /St. Maarten carnaval 2009 more than 12 troupes lined up the streets all in the company of up to 300 members dancing in out of this world’s imaginative carnival costumes, at the same time local melodic artistes presented calypso and soca music and songs for the foreign travelers’ amusement as well as the local spectators. Most of these songs, as per the custom in local Caribbean music and culture, consisted of double-meaning and stab fun at some characteristics of life or on administration. Few were bolder than others and included bodily double meaning words.
Costumed dancers and public jumped and jammed the way all along the avenues of Philipsburg, the St. Maarten’s capital city, to the beat of island’s rhythms. If you were seeing this 4 mile long procession of multicultural, multiracial color and glitz, it would not be possible to save yourself from getting into the festival spirit which we all call Carnival or Carnaval.
Here are some St.Martin Carnival 2009 videos and live coverage from the parade.
