weaving magic

One of the most rewarding parts of working on this exciting initiative is to have the assumption constantly reaffirmed that Cape Town has more than the talent needed to make… no create… a brilliant and very unique Cape Town Carnival! There is no way that the analogy of or a comparison can be made to something like the Rio Carnival. For one we are distinctly different (no one samba played over and over here!) simply in culture… but more importantly… we are diverse and complex! If we can marry all these genres together, we going to see a rich tapestry created… and I suspect that these kind of engagements will reinforce the histories and help forge newness and uniqueness that Africa is just so bloody good at!

Step-by-step, we can do this TOGETHER!

so it's been more than 12 months since I first got that call on a Friday afternoon at 17h30 from Rachel to ask whether I will be willing to take on this Carnival baby...

So much has happened since then. We did a wad of research - anyone care to see the 70 page presentation that brought the reality of Carnival to all of us? We decided on a theme "Rhythm, Roots and Boots" and gave birth to a corporate identity.

We had a launch with Helen Zille - 500 invitees, a dance routine happening in 3 weeks, an event meeting where we discussed the almost impossible task of closing Long Street and barely survived and a miracle evening where bergies and tourists and invitees in cocktail dresses and street kids together danced the night away. We've had a million meetings with potential sponsors and we're still going strongly. We've gone on an R&D trip to Rio - which everyone looked at and said "Yeah right and you call that work?" :D

We've gotten an office, which was rather lonely with just me in it for the first while, we've gotten our first sponsor for an operational team (what a blessing) and we've had a team start 5 people in six weeks.

We've had our stakeholder meetings, experiencing the goodwill and excitement and passion that people have for their art and culture, we've had the buy-in of our most important stakeholders. We've had sponsors offering us amazing trade sponsorships. We've been building relationships with communities, organisations, government, corporates.

We've had our moments of frustration and our moments of despair. We've had several moments of disappointment, but even more of pure enjoyment and wonder at the amazing people we get to meet and the awesome power of what passion can do. And watching a miracle unfold. We've had moments of heated debating of exactly how the groups need to be constituted, perform in a way that makes sense and who should be our MC's for events. We've had moments of gentle teasing and rigorous postering ;) (and that's in our internal team :D)

We've signed up our TV partners... we've seen the birth of our Carnival Theme Song...

How far have we come....

After endless cups of coffee, and herbal tea... and herbal tea.. and herbal tea... too many slices of real Italian pizza from the Italian shop on the corner (Timeout), late nights, red-eye flights to Johannesburg, moments of madness and hysteria, endless meetings and pitches... we are still on track!

This is our Recession Carnival, having had had to scale down the carnival in a huge way, taking the current economic situation into account.

But it is happening!!!! and we need everyone to pitch in and help, so that in 244 days we'll be able to enjoy the first fruits of our Carnival venture and all say.... we were part of that!

Come on Cape Town, this carnival belongs to you!

If I am blogging... anything is possible...

Hola!! (And... Isabella! It is I.... yes I.... the anti-blogger...;)

So, 18, 19, 20 March 2010 is the date for the Carnival weekend. Yet, for me, the Carnival is already happening. Every day that we passionately inject ourselves into our work in our engine room at 44 Long Street, (or wherever else we may be doing that Carnival “thing” that we do), the Carnival IS happening. Every day anybody outside the engine room speaks or thinks about the Carnival, the Carnival IS happening. All the wonderful and inspiring conversations and engagements we have had and continue to have with various performing arts groups, community leaders, artistic visionaries, businesses, techies and the beautiful people of Cape Town in general, IS the Carnival happening. So the Carnival event may be 245 days away, (*deep breath*) but every day is seeing another little piece of the story becoming a reality. Stukkie vir stukkie. So in my opinion: The Carnival is HERE!

And a far as the past few days, weeks are concerned…. Let’s see: Building Relationships. Creating Spaces for Creativity. Earning Trust. Making Friends. Building Bridges. Laughing. Faith. Making the Difficult-to-Conceive Possible. Building more Relationships. And… a touch of MAGIC… That's a window into the story of us, the Cape Town Carnival Team.

Wonderful to be here! Can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner…

My motto for the week: Creativity takes Practice.

Vision

So there we were having our second forum meeting on the 14^th July in the Africa Centre room (Has a nice ring to it). Most of the large associations in Cape Town were there. Everyone was enthusiastic and passionate and the ball started rolling… One of the topics which came up is our Cape Town Carnival theme song and how this would be adapted for each of the groups and the various flavours that the Cape Town communities have to offer. Our whole vision of social cohesion and community development extends itself to every aspect of the carnival including how our groups are being formed and how our music is being written. So we will have five groups competing against each other, each made up of all the different flavours of music and dance that Cape Town has to offer. These flavours will be divided into sections within the five competing groups, with the vision being that at least two flavours will work together in song and dance – coming together as a new unique blend that emphasizes each other and while still retaining their original flavour :)

Examples of other great flavour combos:

Chocolate and hazelnut, Sweet & Sour, Sweet & Salty, Roquefort fresh figs, Feta cheese and watermelon,Stilton Cheese with Pecans, Raw oysters and Muscadet, Garlic and rosemary, Mushrooms with sage, Salame & and a sharp gorgonzola, Sharp cheddar and grapes, Strong black coffee, cinnamon rolls, Lime Juice and Cilantro, Swiss cheese and avocado,Gouda with pear, Vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, Bourbon and 7-Up, Bacon and scrambled eggs, Chocolate and Banana, Spicy red onion and blue cheese, Strawberries and balsamic, Frangelico and blueberries, Peanut butter and Jelly, Cream cheese and Jalapeno jelly, Mango and Hot Sauce, Lime and Avocado,Fresh peaches and cream,Fresh figs and mascarpone cheese, Strawberries and champagne, Fried clams and tartar sauce, Indian lentils (dhal) and yogurt, Saltines and bar chocolate, Oreos and peanut butter, Papaya with lime juice, Pretzels dipped in milk chocolate, Coffee ice cream w/hot fudge, Cranberry and turkey, Bananas and Rum, Shrimp and Ginger and Beed and Orange.

Put on your Dancing Boots!

I suspect that my friends are a tad jealous of me. When you work in vibey Long Street, in an office filled with charming, fun-loving, dedicated professionals and your day is always unpredictable, who wouldn’t be? But I think the foremost reason is that I’m part of the team behind the biggest party Cape Town is yet to see. Carnival! Dancers! Minstrels! Drummers! OTT costumes! 2-Storey Floats! Can you say idyllic?

I’m the PR and Marketing person(ality) for the Cape Town Carnival, and I’m relishing it. We work hard, we play hard and most of the time the lines between work and play are blurred. This week was a prime example.

I was fortunate enough to see the birth of a future number one hit. The Cape Town Carnival theme song was recorded at the impressive Kaleidosound Studios and produced by Gabi Le Roux - he of Mandoza’s cross-over hit Nkalakatha. Watching Gabi compose and record the song is quite incredible. He approaches his task with a meticulous yet highly intuitive style. Something he was born to do, I’m convinced. I wonder what he would be like if we were back in the 16th century? I’m sure that he’d resemble the maniacal genius of Mozart. Love your style, Gabz!

The theme song is thoroughly feel-good (perfect for summer) - about Cape Town coming together through art, building those much needed bridges through culture and of course having fun at the carnival. Word of caution – you will dance.

t’s performed by local marvels that you might recognize but I’ll keep you all in suspense until it’s officially released. What I can tell you is that they’re brilliant at improvisation, stringing together acoustic versions of the theme song in merely seconds. Raw talent. My job for the day was to document all of this on film, which we’ll upload onto the website soon, so keep visiting

www.capetowncarnival.com. Also, check Facebook and Twitter (CTCarnival) regularly for updates on events leading up to the Carnival parade taking place 18-20 March 2010.

... my marketing guru knows how to warm the cockles of my heart..

We have the most beautiful office... in a fantastic revamped building - the New Space Theatre... but it could do with a fireplace....

So Kelli knowing my wishlist for a list of restaurants in Cape Town that has a fireplace, decided that she would warm up my day, after the last few days of miserable winter weather.....

Gotta love my PR - she is creative and has a heart of gold.... no more cold hands for me..... so much love in this office ;)

Forced

So at the moment we are forced to Blog... And a stern warning was given by Isabel that if we do not contribute by Friday we must buy the rest of the office a drink.

This is a difficult situation for me... I'll gladly buy everybody at the office all the time a drink(s) but I fear that they will have to and since we are 6 in the office and there is only five working days I'm afraid that we might loose an opportunity for a drink!

But on the logistics side: a lot of work has been done and confirmation on exact venue etc will follow hopefully in the next month... so hold thumbs.

Also busy confirming the bands for the after party... and we are talking a big line-up... real headliners...

OK, have to go and do some real work now. Like Facebook.