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PAMA is the place this month to take in the Sikh arts  by Stephen Weir for the Peel Weekly News For the month of April and beyond, the rising stars in the Sikh art world have their work on display in the Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives (PAMA) in downtown Brampton. Three exhibitions of Sikh art opened today, and, media attending the Friday morning presser learned that the gallery is free for the month of April thanks to the Sikh Foundation of Canada. The shows - RUPY C. TUT: A JOURNEY BACK HOME: AMARDEEP SINGH: LOST HERITAGE: A SIKH LEGACY IN PAKISTAN and KAUM: CELEBRATING CONTEMPORARY SIKH ARTISTS embrace paintings, photography and mosaics.   The artists with works on display at PAMA hail from America, India, Hong Kong and Canada. Rupy C. Tut is a contemporary Indo-American artist based in Oakland, California. She came of age in Punjab, India but as a young child moved to the USA. The visual artist has a strong spiritual connection to her Punjabi Sikh ...

By Stephen Weir for the Caribbean Camera Jamaica is the new kid on the international Carnival block and this year, thanks to big Canadian visitor numbers, the child has suddenly grown up. Although there have been carnivals in Jamaica since 1989 it has only been in the last three or four years that carnival fans from North America and other Caribbean countries have sat up and taken notice of what is going on in the One Love island nation. The annual festival in Jamaica kicked off in January this year and ended last Sunday with a mas parade of 6,000 costumed revellers through the streets of Kingston.   What made Sunday’s parade different from the past parades was the number of Canadians and other international visitors who were on the road in costume, and in the crowds of spectators that lined the streets of Kingston. Celena Seusahai is one of the driving forces behind the Tribal Carnival mas band in Toronto.   She took time off work to join fellow Canadians taking...

Cosmic Fusion takes a bow - photo by Stephen Weir Jamaal Magloire and the Revellers holding part two of their costume l aunch this Sunday By Stephen Weir for the Caribbean Camer a The show is over ... for now. Early early this past Sunday morning the doors closed at the York Mills Gallery banquet hall where over 600 people had taken in the long anticipated Toronto Revellers Band Costume Launch, Part One. Unfortunately it was an unexpected shortened show with only six of their ten sections performing. The remaining four sections are expected to be presented – in part or in whole -- this Sunday evening in Scarborough at the opening of the Revellers’ mas camp. At the York Mills Gallery launch band leader Jamaal Magloire introduced this year's carnival costumes, all inspired by the theme Extinction: Love Our Planet. Helping the NBA star out on stage was Miami carnival personality D'Wassi One and Trinidad champion mas designer and singer Ronnie Mc Into...

--> Superstar Machel Montano performing at a rare afternoon costume launch. Machel Montano on College Street By Stephen Weir    The Atlantic Mas camp, with the help of Soca superstar singer Machel Montano, has saved the best for last!   Bandleader Akil Heywood says that their third annual costume launch will be held at the Rebel Nightclub (Polson Pier) the afternoon of May 19 th . “Not everyone wants to stay up until 3am in the morning at a costume launch.   We are holding a launch in the afternoon, with Machel Montano performing on stage at the Rebel nightclub. The Rebel nightclub is one of Toronto’s largest and most popular concert destinations,” said Mr. Heywood. “We are calling the launch an ‘Invitation to Dance’ with a theme we call Semba,” he continued.   “ It is the Victoria Day long weekend, the perfect way to spend holiday Saturday.” Getting the Trinidad based performer known as the Soca King, to perform at a costume lau...

When Death Come Run  (but not till Martin’s play is over) By Stephen Weir for the Caribbean Camera Rehearsals are well underway for a new play which the playwright describes as a mash up of old time Jamaica and British theatrical farce. When Death Come Run by Torontonian Yvette Martin, opens the evening   (8pm) of   Friday May 4 th at the downtown Al Green Theatre. “ The play owes a lot to Agatha Christie written from a Jamaican perspective,” Martin explains. “Despite the part-patois title of the play, When Death Come Run is aimed at a general English-speaking audience”, The two-act play is set in the rainy Parish of Portland, Jamaica in the early 1970’s. The play, a comedic mystery focuses on two brothers in their late 60’s, Joshua Jenkins, the local tailor (John Phillips) and his brother Jerimiah Jenkins, the local grave digger and part time medicine man (David Smith). Along with their extended dysfunctional family they all try to come to terms wit...