Press release published Friday 06 October 2006
The carnival is historically an embodiment of the symbolic inversion of power, and has often been linked to the debauched festivities of the Roman festival of Saturnalia. The Lord Mayor’s Show, coming up on its 800th year and traditionally a celebration of the swearing of fealty to the crown, does not fall easily within this category. However, on taking a closer look at the line up for this year’s Lord Mayor’s Show, it’s apparent that it incorporates more of the exciting, colourful and irrepressible art of the carnival than ever before.
Mandinga Arts from Clapham is one of six London groups to have received an exclusive invitation and £10,500 in funding from the City of London to build their own float for inclusion in the spectacular Lord Mayor’s Show. British and Colombian artists Charles Beauchamp and Julieta Rubio, who for the last 15 years have designed and created award-winning giant puppets, costumes, masks and floats for carnivals, festivals, community projects and theatre, established Mandinga Arts in 2002. They set up with the objective of giving artists the chance to work together on performance opportunities – to practice, improve, educate, share and promote carnival arts. The company exists to bring together live music, carnival costume design and dance, drawing on diverse influences from Europe, Latin America and Africa, with community based contributions to the carnival movement in the UK.
At this year’s Lord Mayor’s Show, Mandinga will be bringing the spirit of Brazil to the capital in a surrealist burst of colour, carnival, dance and Hieronymus Bosch. The 15th century Flemish artist is the influence for the extravagant costumes and the surrealist feel of the performance – there will be dancers, live musicians from the City of London University and suckling pigs surrounded by giant cutlery. The group, including children from Southwark club ‘Southside Kids’, will also be creating a carnival atmosphere electrifying enough to grace the streets of Rio de Janeiro with an exciting mix of Brazilian dancing and singing and all of this will happen around the stunning fluorescent pink vintage milk float they are building for the event.
Charles Beauchamp from Mandinga Arts said: “This is the third time we have taken part in the show; it’s always a joy and an honour to be dancing through the streets of the City of London as part of this historic parade. The performance will be conga meets Hieronymus Bosch; it will be weird, beautiful, and macabre but celebratory and full of energy to welcome the new Lord Mayor into office.”
Of course, the carnival spirit is not limited to just one country, and will not be limited to just one float in the Lord Mayor’s Show. The beauty of carnival art is its unique ability to incorporate many cultural influences, combine a complete range of performing arts and continually adapt itself to a contemporary social and political context and simultaneously involve all sections of the community. Kinetika, another community float funded by the City of London, will combine the carnival feel with traditional Bengali music, dance and dramatic performance. A 12 foot high articulated model of a Royal Bengal Tiger will lead the group, who will be dancing through the streets of London to the tune of traditional and contemporary Bengali music, including Baul singers and Bangla drums.
The parade will also be joined by a float with a very British approach to carnival art. The Arts for All float, sponsored by the City of London, will feature children from Shoreditch who have choreographed a dance routine with a member of the Central School of Ballet. They will accompany circus performers and giant tricycles on the day of the parade whilst spinning ribbons and wearing costumes they have designed themselves in a cavalcade of colour.
The 2006 Lord Mayor’s Show, which will wind through the streets of London on Saturday 11th November, is set to be one of the biggest, most vibrant and culturally diverse in the parade’s history. Military marching bands will unite with urban hip-hop sounds, inner-city kids will strut their stuff alongside City workers and dazzling charity floats will wow the crowds in the world’s oldest street procession.
To be a part of the celebrations, just get to the City for the morning of Saturday 11th November and nab a place on the well-marked route. The procession will weave its way from Guildhall, in the heart of the City, through the historic streets of the Square Mile, passing Bank Tube, Mansion House and St. Paul’s Cathedral before continuing to the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand.