Making Carnival

Perpetual Beauty Carnival Club: Stoke Newington’s Pioneering Mas Band

Five people dressed in blue and white peacock costumes posing in the middle of the street.

This blog explores the story of Perpetual Beauty Carnival Club, the Stoke Newington Mas Band that introduced Caribbean carnival traditions to the borough in the 1970s, inspiring generations of Mas makers.  Mas Comes to Hackney In the 18th and 19th centuries, enslaved people in the Caribbean developed Mas – short for ‘masquerade’ – as a … Read more

Making Carnival: 50 years of Mas, music and movement

A photograph of a Caribbean heritage man (Lincoln Rahamut) standing outside a warehouse building wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. He also wears a very large structure made out of wire, orange and yellow paper, part of a future carnival costume. He holds a dynamic pose with legs apart and two hands with pointed fingers raised into the air.

Carnival in Hackney goes back many years. However Hackney Carnival is a more recent way to celebrate the borough’s diverse communities and cultures. This blog shares some stories exploring the imaginative and persevering carnival groups who helped develop Hackney Carnival into the community celebration we recognise today. What is Hackney Carnival? Hackney Carnival is a … Read more