This year’s festival will celebrate the 125th birthday of the city of gold with floats, music, dance and giant puppets to bring in the new year in style.
COLOURFUL floats, music and dance will usher in the year 2012 when the annual Joburg Carnival takes to the streets of the inner city on New Year’s Eve.
City regions will each parade under different themesCity regions will each parade under different themesThe theme is “Jozi, My Jozi 125”, marking Joburg’s 125th birthday this year. And for the first time, there will be a troupe of street kids from all over the city.
Now in its eighth year, the festival – a stalwart on Joburg’s entertainment calendar – will make its merry way through the famed city of gold. More than 2 000 carnival participants from all seven regions will converge at Kotze Street in Hillbrow.
Troupes from each region will be depicting their neighbourhoods with colourful costumes, flags, floats, choreographed dance movements, music and poetry. The regions and themes represented at the carnival are:
Alex, Sandton and Norwood area (Siya Da! ),
Soweto (Going Green),
Midrand and Ivory Park (Shuku Shuku Seed to City),
Westbury and Riverlea (Jozi Chameleon 125),
Roodeport and Braamfischer (Going Green, Going Clean),
Inner City Evolution (Revolution),
Lenasia, Eldorado Park and Orange Farm (Untold Stories), and
Millpark Skills Development (Indigenous Games).
Children from Johannesburg shelters for orphans and street kids have designed a gigantic 1.7m-high and 3m-wide birthday cake of cardboard and wire which will be showcased this year.
The parade will include 4m-high puppets from The Giant Match Association, a non-profit organisation. The giant puppets appeared during both the opening and closing ceremonies of the Soccer World Cup. They have also been showcased in Swaziland, the Reunion Islands, Madagascar and the United States of America.
There will be prizes for the best large costume, best troupe costume, best overall interpretation of the sub-themes and best choreographed region. The troupe that wins best choreography will receive prizes from Simba.
Prizes will be dished out to winning floatsThe best large costume will get a prize“The 2011 carnival will be bigger and better than ever,” says the City’s acting director of arts, culture and heritage, Alba Letts.
“Come and join us and support the participants who have been working long, exhausting hours to design costumes, build them and rehearse their moves for the big day. Come and join Joburg as we celebrate 125 years and see in the 126th year of Joburg’s official existence.”
Member of the mayoral committee for community development, Chris Vondo, says: “This year’s carnival coincides with our City’s 125 celebration and what better way to celebrate the founding of the Golden City.”
Vondo adds that this celebration and other events organised by the City are replete with activities and programmes geared at making our City of Johannesburg a liveable place in the next 30 years.
“Almost four months ago, the City of Johannesburg under the leadership of our Executive Mayor, Parks Tau, we embarked on an ambitious outreach programme, the Growth and Development Strategy (GDS). In sum the GDS is a comprehensive document setting out the City’s medium to long term plans for the next 30 years.”
The parade will start at noon in Kotze Street in Hillbrow and make its way to the Newtown precinct across the Nelson Mandela Bridge. It will end in Newtown Park with troupes from different regions competing against each other.
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