WCOM NEWS

9-19-04

Festivals to feature taste of the Caribbean, hurricane relief

MIRAMAR--Visitors will be able to enjoy the sounds, sights and tastes of different Caribbean countries -- and help hurricane victims in the islands -- at two festivals in southwest Broward County.

The Jamaican Jerk Festival will be from noon to 9 p.m. today in C.B. Smith Park, 900 N. Flamingo Road in Pembroke Pines. CaribeFest 2004, postponed because of Hurricane Frances, is now scheduled for 3 to 11 p.m. Sept. 26 in Lakeshore Park, 8501 S. Sherman Circle in Miramar.

The festival in C.B. Smith Park will focus on Jamaica, with food and music from the island. Admission is $15. Children age 10 and younger will be admitted free.

Visitors also will be asked to make donations and bring nonperishable foods to help the country's hurricane victims, said Eddy Edwards, director of Ridims Marketing, a Miami firm that is one of the event's promoters.

After receiving reports of damage from Hurricane Ivan, organizers immediately arranged to include relief efforts among the festivities, he said.

"Once we saw the amount of devastation, we knew we had to do something," said Edwards, who began conducting the festival in C.B. Smith three years ago.

Last year's event drew about 5,000 visitors, he said.

Edwards said he came up with the idea for the festival after seeing a chili cook-off.

"I thought if there could be a chili cook-off, we can do a jerk cooking competition," he said.

This year's cook-off will be conducted from noon to 2 p.m. Jerk chicken, pork and fish also will be sold.

Other activities will be a children's area with rides, a jerk pork eating contest and a dominos competition. A cultural village will feature folk singers, story tellers and dancers. A travel village will have information and discount rates on vacation destinations in the Caribbean.

Visitors also will be able to dance to reggae, calypso and mento music. Scheduled to perform are the Burning Flames from Antigua and two Jamaican groups, the Fabulous Five and the Blue Glades Mento Band.

Kellie Magnus, a children's book author from New York, will do a reading. Willie Stewart, a former member of the group Third World, will conduct an African drumming demonstration.

Audiences can continue dancing at CaribeFest 2004. The free event will have a diverse mix of musical acts, from salsa to calypso.

The festival was supposed to be held Sept. 5. The date was moved when Hurricane Frances threatened South Florida, said Jean Harold Limage, president of CaribeFest Inc.

The nonprofit group organizes the festival, now in its second year, with the city of Miramar. The event, which attracted 3,500 to 4,000 people last year, represents French, Spanish and English Caribbean countries, Limage said.

"This is the first time we had to postpone the festival," Limage said. "But this is a free community event. People will still come."

Activities for the rescheduled festival have remained mostly intact. Discussions are under way with city officials to include some sort of relief effort for people in the islands who were struck by Hurricanes Frances and Ivan, Limage said.

"The festival will have even more meaning for people to gather to bring help to the Caribbean," he said.

There will be only one change in the event. The band Tabou Combo, which has been playing Haitian kompa music since 1968 at venues around the world, is unable to attend because it has another engagement, Limage said.

Replacing Tabou Combo will be T-Vice, a kompa act from Haiti. Other performers will include reggae singer Glenn Washington, a hip hop group called Da Minted and more reggae music by a band named Pluto.

There also will be music by a local Haitian band named 509, the Lauderhill Steel Pan Ensemble and the Mocko Jumbie stilt dancers from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The sounds of soca will be played by Leon Coldero. Jorge Moreno, a 2002 Latin Grammy award winner, will perform a mix of tunes that fuse Afro-Cuban salsa with '60s pop and '50s calypso.

Vendors will be selling foods from the islands, such as oxtail, griot, black mushroom rice, jerk chicken and fried fish. There also will be face painting, inflatable rides and raffles.

To accommodate the expected large turnout, free shuttle bus service will be provided to Lakeshore Park from Forzano Park.

(source) Sun Sentinel (Beth Feinstein-Bartl) 9-19-04