Caribana Festival performers on stage yesterday (Sunday) in Vancouver, (Winter Games)

From the stage: Left to right, Danielle Ramjattan, Nicki Ramjass and Martin Scott-Pascall show Olympic goers how to play Mas! Scott-Pascall is also the Artist Director on the tour.

• Macomere Fifi (Eulith Woods) one of North America's best Calypsonian singer performs on stage at the Ontario Pavillion inside the Olympic grounds in Vancouver

An all-star cast of Mas Players, Calypso singers and Pan Artistes performed the first of three performancess at the Ontario Pavilion within the Olympic site in Vancouver.

The Ontario Government has built a 13,000 sq ft Pavilion at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver to showcase the province’s leading technological, cultural and culinary advancements. As the largest summer festival in the province and the cultural jewel of the country, Scotiabank Caribana was approached to produce a 10 min video and to stage three - one hour performances, one each on February 14^th, 15^th and 16^th.

The intent of the festival's participation is to help promote the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario as a premier tourist destination to visit and do business. It will take the form of a 13-member team showcasing the various carnival arts; Mas’, Calypso and Steel pan.

The Ontario Pavilion is setting a new standard in creativity and innovation. It offers visitors a unique, one-of-a-kind, inspirational experience that will live on in their memories for years to come and reinforce Ontario’s Olympic brand message — “There’s No Place Like This…” An initiative of the Ministry of Tourism, the Pavilion will feature the best Ontario has to offer from a tourism perspective, featuring nightly concerts, culinary experiences, film, technology, the arts and a jaw dropping Scotiabank Caribana performance!

Audiences in Vancouver are experiencing some of the exciting entertainment that make the 3-week Scotiabank Festival Canada’s biggest tourist draw -- next to the Olympics. This year Scotiabank kicks off Tuesday July 13^th at the Yonge Dundas Square. The parade will be held along Toronto’s waterfront on July 31^st. The festival ends on Sunday August 1^st with the DeScotiabank Caribana Lime at Ontario Place.

Even after the Scotiabank Caribana performers have left Vancouver, visitors to the Olympics will see breathtaking images from the annual Toronto festival. Last summer The Canadian Tourism Commission, in association with the Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, sent a film crew right onto the Scotiabank Caribana parade route and shot high definition footage to be used in a video postcard about the Festival.

The Caribana video postcard (one of two dozen made for the Olympics) has been reproduced into four lengths (2.5 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, and 15 seconds), dubbed into several languages, and provided to over 200 official Olympic Games’ broadcasters around the world to be seem by a potential cumulative audience of over 10 billion people.

The Scotiabank Caribana Festival is an exciting two-week cultural explosion of Caribbean music, cuisine, revelry as well as visual and performing arts. Now in its 43rd year, it has become a major international event and the largest cultural festival of its kind in North America. As Scotiabank Caribana is an international cultural phenomenon, the great metropolis of Toronto and its environs will come alive as the city explodes with the pulsating rhythms and melodies of Calypso, Soca, Reggae, Chutney, and Steel Pan music. The Festival Management Committee oversees the running of North America’s largest outdoor festival. www.caribanafestival.com

(The article and photos are from Stephen Weirs press release)