Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Jai Ojha-Maharaj is back playing sweet Caribbean music to the World! B y Stephen Weir The Dean of Soca Music on the Toronto airwaves is back! Two weeks ago Sunday morning radio host JaiOjah-Maharaj once again got behind the microphone and started playing the sweet sounds of Soca and Calypso Music. The Caribbean Connection Radio Show with Jai is not being heard on Toronto’s CHIN radio station, his home for 30-years, but on the MyCarribeanRadio -- the Trinidadian Super Soca online radio station. “The actual show is originating out of a private studio in Toronto’s west-end” Ojah told me in a recent phone interview. “We are going to video stream at a later date, so in the short-term it will be just radio. To hear me listeners (anywhere in the world) must log on towww.mycaribbeanradio.com Sundays 10am to 2 pm beginning Sunday.” Jai Ojha-Haharaj    was the host and producer of the original Caribbean Connection Radio Show that for 30 years was the mainstay of weekend pr

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 matched them wi

Virgilia Griffith Unguarded in  the Tarragon’s Guarded Girls By Stephen Weir In a city where there are scads more actors and actresses than there are roles to perform in, there is one person on stage who is very very different.    The standout star is Toronto’s Virgilia Griffith, a young woman who has been constantly employed – plays, dance performances, and TV roles – since graduating from Ryerson’s Theatre Program some eight years ago.   In the last year the Caribbean Camera has    strongly praised her work in three different plays    - Soulpepper’s Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Tarragon’s Harlem Duet,    and Obsidian’s Other Side Of The Game. Now she winning standing O’s in Tarragon’s Extra Space co-starring in Guarded Girls, an all-women 90-minute play about the horrors of prison. It is a brand new work by Governor General’s Literary Award nominee Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman.  It stars Griffith, Columpa Bobb, Vivien Endicott-Douglas and Michaela Washburn. Set on a stage

Two Different Approaches For The Saturday night Battle of the Bands By Stephen Weir  Photographs by Stephen Weir  Jully Black from reggae singer to Soca sailor Two Mas Men went head-to-head on Saturday night and both came out winners, each in their own way.   A pair of Caribbean Carnival Band launches were held on the same night – one in North Toronto and the other in Malvern.    The two band leaders   - Raptor celeb Jamaal Magloire (Toronto Revellers) and Will Morton (Fantazia) took two different approaches to showing off the costumes that their bands will be wearing on the road this summer. In the business of Mas, the winners and losers of a Battle of the Bands, is ultimately not determined by the number of people that attended (in which case Jamaal won hands down) but rather by the number of costume buyers who decide to sign on the bottom line as a result of the fashion show.   The Revellers won at the gate, and Fantazia had the most social media cameras beamin

Angélique  Quebec's oft-denied history of slavery By Stephen Weir / Caribbean Camera It took twenty years but as the spring stage season draws to a close, the most important Black History play just hit the boards, not with a thud but an explosion.   Ang é lique is the true story of a young domestic slave, who was blamed for setting fire to Montreal and was tortured and hanged for her troubles. The 285-year old saga is not a state secret. However, the fact that there was slavery in Lower Canada (now the province of Quebec), and at least one black woman who fought back is not a well-known fact. Ang é lique  a classic Canadian play written by the late Lorena Gale, is based on the transcripts of the trial in 1724 of Angelique. The current remount produced by Factory and Obsidian Theatre (mounted initially by the Quebec - based   Black Theatre Workshop) draws a line from this relatively unknown event to the province ' s contemporary struggles with racism. Montreal