AD­VER­TO­R­I­AL

KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

DJ Ana has be­come a pow­er­house in the en­ter­tain­ment cir­cuit.

Known for her en­er­getic and vibes-filled mu­sic count­downs and “Glam Jam Vlogs”, DJ Ana con­tin­ues to put a smile on many faces.

Re­al name Ana Ram­nar­ine, DJ Ana is a Cana­di­an born and raised in Trinidad. She has been a DJ since the age of ten and on the ra­dio since she was 16.

For the sec­ond year, DJ Ana and Ul­tra Sim­mo will present their J’Ou­vert band Glam Jam J’Ou­vert (GJJ), in San Fer­nan­do.

“We’re blessed to be on course for a 50 per cent in­crease in mas­quer­aders this year,” she said.

“I’ve been do­ing so­ca and Car­ni­val events since I was a child, and dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, we made the de­ci­sion to con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val by start­ing a J’Ou­vert band.

“The aim is to use the ideas and pop­u­lar­i­ty of my­self and Ul­tra Sim­mo to en­cour­age more peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val.”

Both DJ Ana and Ul­tra Sim­mo have been ful­ly sup­port­ive of women in their ini­tia­tives.

“In plan­ning, pro­mo­tion and ex­e­cu­tion, we have a num­ber of women that are es­sen­tial in mak­ing us who we are,” DJ Ana said.

“My Mom, See­ta Sinanan-Ram­nar­ine, has been do­ing hero­ic work as­sist­ing us with the over­all co­or­di­na­tion. Shelly Ann Ram­lochan has been do­ing a lot of our ad­min­is­tra­tive and tech­ni­cal work. Gabrielle Le­gendre is our lo­gis­tics man­ag­er and she over­sees our ex­e­cu­tions.

“Our Celebri­ty Hair­styl­ist Can­dice Mo­han is ever present and keeps hair on point. Karah Ram­nar­ine of LaCara Make­up does faces for our pho­to shoots. Colleen Ram­lo­gan of The Beau­ty Base­ment by Colleen does amaz­ing work as a part­ner, spon­sor and reg­is­tra­tion point. Re­na Gob­indass of Stitch­es By Re­na is our head seam­stress for monoki­nis.

“There are al­so our phe­nom­e­nal mod­els like Aaliyah, Dinelle, Ivana.”

The J’Ou­vert band leader al­so works with many women sup­pli­ers such as Maris­sa of Fam­i­ly Taste Cater­ing who does corn soup and Aileen Coop­er of Frozen Bar who pro­vides frozen treats.

“This year I want­ed to en­sure that at least one oth­er fe­male DJ is in the band with me, so all the way from Cana­da we’re hav­ing DJ Steph Hon­ey with us this year, and last year to cross the stage we had Nailah Black­man and she’ll be with us again.”

Safe­ty for mas­quer­aders is para­mount for DJ Ana and her or­gan­is­ing team.

“Both the ac­tu­al abil­i­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence Car­ni­val and life with­out in­ci­dents and the per­cep­tion of safe­ty, so that you can en­joy life and Car­ni­val freely,” she said.

“We don’t cut cor­ners in any­thing with re­gards to safe­ty. We al­so brief our mas­quer­aders on what be­hav­iour to ex­pect and what we don’t ac­cept.

“For ex­am­ple, we have dif­fer­ent chits on your wrist­band for food, and drinks but al­so for a ‘jam’ so you can present it to a fel­low mas­quer­ad­er and once they agree you give them a dance. So it’s a very fun and in­ter­ac­tive vibe with con­sent al­so be­ing key.”

The band has grown, and its se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence will be high­er this year, with rope han­dlers, ex­trac­tion squad, plain-clothes po­lice and per­son­al body­guards.

Se­cured park­ing will be pro­vid­ed at Skin­ner Park with a shut­tle ser­vice to Irv­ing Park where the band gath­ers and ends.

DJ Ana said the aim was to cre­ate a has­sle-free ex­pe­ri­ence from be­gin­ning to end for the mas­quer­aders.

“Our cos­tumes have been de­signed for both the mod­est and those who wish to be a bit more dar­ing on the road and the reg­is­tra­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems have al­so been im­proved for every­one, with on­line and in-per­son sys­tems and quick feed­back loops,” she said.

“At Irv­ing Park and on the road we’ll have our own me­dia to cap­ture our ladies at their best and pre­serve the mem­o­ries. Last year we had many ex­tra good­ies at dis­tri­b­u­tion and on the road and our mas­quer­aders can look for­ward to more this year.”

Her ad­vice for women on the road for Car­ni­val 2024 is to find a bal­ance be­tween re­al­ly em­brac­ing the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence and be­ing very safe.

“There’s pow­er in stick­ing with your group and set­ting up emer­gency and con­tin­gency plans,” she added.

“Car­ni­val is a beau­ti­ful fes­ti­val which is meant to be a cel­e­bra­tion of cul­ture and di­ver­si­ty. It’s al­so a cel­e­bra­tion of our women so we should def­i­nite­ly cel­e­brate each oth­er and max­imise the fes­tiv­i­ties.”