Juniors learning art of costume-making

Juniors and other viewers can now benefit first-hand from tips in costume-making.

That’s because the National Cultural Foundation has started an online series Play De Mas: Junior Costume Making 101.

The programme provides short and engaging educational content for children and new masquerade costume designers to have access to.

The six-part series gives invaluable insight and practical knowledge while covering a number of topics. The sessions are: Design: Theme, Shape and Colour, Making a Basic Headdress and Collar, Making Arm Bands, Leg Bands and Flags, Making a Standard Using Wire-bended Forms, Wire-bending: Making A Simple Harness and Wire-bending – Creating and Attaching Forms to a Harness.

In producing the series, the NCF has facilitated various constituents who have been negatively impacted due to the cancellations of Crop Over 2020 and 2021 as a result of COVID-19.

The costume-making sessions are being conducted by Sonia Price, Lana & Linden Adams-Steele, Gerald Walcott, Jaleel Babb, Troy Burgess and Neal Stanley. The group of designers and wire-workers who do not directly benefit from the NCF subsidy assigned to bandleaders.

Producer of the series NCF’s Chief Cultural Officer Andrea Wells said the Foundation was excited to offer this digital content that is educational.

“This six-part series on costume-making was designed to pique the interest of beginners in this artform. Masquerade costume-making usually gets centre-stage at Crop Over, but the skills are equally useful for anyone with an interest in design or hand-made crafts.

Wells added: “Six designers who traditionally work for Junior and Grand Kadooment take the viewer through a step by step and fun process in creating costumes on a theme.

“An engaging and easy-to-follow series which will be fun for children and adults alike. The programme will also be added to the NCF’s resource of online educational resources that can be integrated in future school-based training programmes.”

The series, which started last Saturday, May 7, will be aired on social media channels over the next five Saturdays. Log on to The NCF Barbados on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. (PR)