Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  E.P.I.C. Carnival Gears Up for an Epic April 25th Costume Launch By Stephen Weir While many local Carnival aficionados are in Trinidad celebrating Carnival, others have stayed behind in Toronto to prepare for what promises to be an epic event on April 25th. E.P.I.C. Carnival, a medium-sized mas band, is celebrating its tenth year participating in Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival and is getting ready to show their stuff. The acronym "E.P.I.C." stands for Energy, Passion, Imagination, and Culture. Jerrol Augustine, also known as "Stretch," is the bandleader of E.P.I.C. Carnival. He recently announced the theme for this year’s presentation and confirmed April 25th as the official date for its costume launch. Each year, the band unveils a new theme for the carnival. In 2024, their theme was "Imagination," featuring sections such as Grenadus, Ethereal, Day Dream, Aquaria, and Wild Thoughts. This year, according to Stretch’s Instagram account, the 2025 theme is “...

March 31 will see an Epic costume launch.  Now that the Trinidad Carnival is over, Toronto Mas camps are getting ready to kick-off the 2023 Toronto Caribbean Carnival season. In a matter of weeks there will be late night costume launches and the opening of mas camps and pan alleys. E.P.I.C Carnival will be the first of the bands competing in this year’s summer parade to hold a costume launch. It will happen at the 400-person Grand Luxe Event Boutique on Bayview Avenue in North York on Friday March 31st.   “ Yes, we are coming out first this year and we can’t wait to kick off the season some EPIC costumes,” said Band leader Jerrol Augustine (aka “Stretch”). “Passion is the theme for 2023 and our 13 sections will tell a story of each of the designers’ passion!” The Mas Band has not yet revealed its costumes yet. However, it is already pre-registering revellers who wish to play mas with EPIC this year.  “On our website you can connect to buy $30 band launch tickets, pre...

Epic Carnival’s costume launch last Saturday has Freudian influenced sections for every revellers' inner dreams Story by Stephen Weir Photos By Gilbert Medina If Sigmund Freud had attended Saturday night’s Epic Carnival costume launch he’d probably would have said that it was an event that reached out not to his Ego, but to his Id.  The Id is that part of the  mind’s psyche, where innate instinctive impulses reside!  Epic’s moniker was Persona and the 500 people who attended were asked to choose the costumes they liked based on their own impulses! “We asked people to think about what their Persona is,” explained Epic’s Jerrol (Stretch), Augustine. What they saw on stage was our EPIC Carnival models portraying many different concepts of Persona. We wanted unique themes that captured the energy, passion, imagination and culture of our masqueraders. This year's focal point is image and self-expression. “ EPIC put a list together of possible persona and matc...