Equals

Equals held an event in St Thomas’ Square in Newport on Saturday May 15th to celebrate Cultural Diversity Day.

The event ran from 11am to 3.15pm with a full programme of performers, workshops and stalls as a showcase to the diverse cultures in our Island.

Stalls

There was a wonderful food stall selling many different foods such as

• Caribbean jerk chicken and dumplings
• Thai green curry
• Indonesian cuisine
• Coconut sweets
• Decorated honey cakes
• Kebabs

Other stalls offering displays and information included

• Face painting stall
• Henna and Java tattooing stall offering wonderful creations of body art
• Indian head massage, tucked away in a quiet corner of Charter house for the ultimate relaxation
• IW Carnival Centre
• Ryde High School
• Surestart
• IOW College
• Medina Housing
• Equals

Music

Raw Samba opened the event for us and drew in the crowds with their wonderful samba music filling the square.

Next up was The Crew. Appearing on stage in their vivid red and black costumes they sang and played English folk music for the crowd.

Jo Caudwell came next with his African drumming and didgeridoo. Jo also held two African drumming workshops for us inside Charter House, both of which were full. Visitors really enjoyed the chance to experience playing the drums themselves.

We were then treated to a belly dancing performance by Rebecca Blachford, followed by a latin dancing display by Rebecca and her husband Richard. The pair also provided workshops so people could get a taste of belly and latin dancing.

Fashion Show

The fashion show was performed by the ladies of Equals Cowes Friendship Group.

There were Filipino, Hawaiian and Indonesian costumes in the show. The Indonesian costumes were borrowed from the Indonesian Embassy in London especially for this event.

The women put the music and routine together themselves, matching the music to each costume and dance. They wrote a piece about each costume, detailing where it was from, the history of the costume, how it was worn and what it was made from and this was read out while each woman was on stage.

Eleven women and four children took part in the show which became the highlight of the event with the biggest crowds of the day. The women rehearsed for weeks and worked hard to do a superb job. Many thanks for their dedication and support for this event.

More Music

Isle of Wight Salsa performed next, displaying a variety of music and dancing. They got the crowd up and dancing with them and it was amazing to see all the visitors smiling and twirling around the square, really getting into the experience.

We had some blues music up next performed by Ben and Damien. This was also a real crowd pleaser with several of the children dancing away in front of the stage.

Becky Haydock was up next playing her fiddle for the crowd. Becky plays in many different bands and is a very talented musician. Jo Caudwell joined her on stage with his african drum for an eclectic mix of music. Thanks go to Becky who also played on stage to fill any short gaps between performance changes.

Poco-Poco Dance

The final event for the day was the poco-poco dance performed by the ladies of Equals Cowes Friendship Group. The poco-poco is a very popular type of line dancing that originated in Indonesia in early 2000.

The ladies made their own costumes for this dance rehearsing for weeks to put it all together. Their performance was excellent and the crowd loved it. They were persuaded to perform an encore and this time the crowd joined in for a perfect finale to the event.

Thanks

Many thanks go the people who prepared all the food for the day, using traditional recipes to provide a real ethnic feast.

A hearty thank you to all the performers for giving their time to support this event and the women from the friendship groups whose dedication and hard work with the performances and the food made this event really special.

Also huge thanks to all the stall holders, the face painters and henna tattooists. Finally thanks to all the volunteers and behind the scenes support who made this day possible.

Photographs shown here were taken on the day by Travis Lumpkin.

Samantha Gilliam-Scott Friendship Group Co-ordinator.