Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Playing Flute in the window. Cooking Love In the Kitchen Famed jazz flutist and author Sherry Winston has a recipe for the perfect romantic at-home dinner date.   Subdued lighting (“bright lights are a turn-off). The right music ( at my age loud hip hop is a no-no). And Chicken Wings – of course the recipe comes from her latest aphrodisiac laden recipe book! The New Yorker has played with Stevie Wonder, performed for both the Clintons and George Bush and cooked on TV with Emirl Lagasse!    After Friday night, she can now say that she performed and signed her cookbook “ For Lovers Only: A Cookbook and More  “ in the front window of the Another Book List in Toronto. The Bathurst and Bloor bookstore includes a large performance space for visiting musicians and authors.   On Friday night they featured a woman who is both!   For Winston’s only public appearance in Canada over 50 long-time fans came out for the 2-hour event.   As well, she and her host Dr. Maurice Bygrave di

By Stephen Weir Canada’s first professional photography association is having its first ever major exhibition this carnival season. It all happens in two weeks at the Scarborough Civic Centre on Borough Drive. Beyond The Carnival photography exhibition features the work eight members of the newly created Canadian Caribbean Photographic Art Collective (CCPAC). Their framed works will hang in the Civic Centre’s rotunda, July 24 th to August 7 th .   The new show is described as “an artistic expression of Caribbean experience through our lenses.”   The show is free and can be viewed 9am – 9pm daily. “The CCPAC, and this exhibition is all about archiving the history of the Caribbean Canadian experience,” explains Anthony Berot, the founder of the Canadian Caribbean Photographic Art Collective.   “ We have an amazing story that is unique to the people of the Caribbean that now call Canada home.   Black. Chinese. Indian we have a common experience that

Creators Cultural Arts  and  De New Regulars and  Foreva Carnival 2018  hold their launches in Toronto By Stephen Weir for the Caribbean Camera Photographs by Don Moreland (Belasco at lunch) and Anthony Berot (model in blue) photo by Anthony Berot Toronto Doubles.    Two Mas Camps hold costume launches on the same Saturday night the second weekend in a row!    This past weekend it was a pair of long established Mas Camps - the  Costume Creators Cultural Arts  and  De New Regulars and Foreva Carnival 2018  holding their launches on the same night. Both events were successful, probably because each launch appealed to different sections of the city. Costume Creators Cultural Arts with Freedom Carnival  is the oldest mas band in the festival and the only that can lay claim to being part of the first parade in 1967.   Founders  Wilfred  and  Calvin Belasco  have turned over the camp (formerly known as Costume Concept )  to Melissa Ramlochan, a model and cuttin

Original launch date postponed by bad weather Photograph by Anthony Berot De New Regulars and Foreva Carnival 2018 had to put the breaks on their planned April costume launch because of bad bad weather. With spring finally arriving in Toronto, one of Carnival’s longest running Mas Camps is confident that the show will go on for sure this weekend. De New Regulars and Foreva Carnival band Launch will be held May 5th at the Nugget Banquet Hall, (55 Nugget  Ave) in Scarborough. Doors open at 10:00 p.m. Admission is $25 per person and includes dinner, a live steel pan performance, D.J. music and, of course, their costume presentation. The theme for the evening is “Straight Out of John John”. John John refers to a housing district in Trinidad. “Janet Lewis aka “flag woman” is a true Caribbean icon,” reads a press release issued by De New Regulars and Foreva Carnival. “In celebrating Janet’s contributions to Carnival in Toronto and the world, we also recognize the importance of the ro

Canadian debut at Toronto’s Royal Cinema By Stephen Weir It took four years and a worldwide Kickstarter project for the Jamaica Dance Hall documentary Bruk Out to Break Out in Toronto. On Friday night the movie was given its Canadian premiere to a wildly cheering audience at the downtown Royal Cinema. The Caribbean Camera Bruk Out – starts with the real thing. Men and women dancing in the streets and steamy dance halls of Kingston, Jamaica with reckless abandon.   Men and women flaunt their sexuality, on the dance floor, in the streets of Kingston and even on the hoods of slow moving cars.   Wining? That is too tame for Dance Hall – this is where the term daggering was born. The camera rolls with a clubber’s point of view of the hot hot dancing, while notable dancehall artists including Beenie Man and Elephant Man explain how the music and dancing feed off each other. The 69-minute movie moves from the ghetto to America, Poland and Spain, following