RISHI RA­GOONATH

Pow­er­ful dy­nas­ties from across the world will con­verge on San Fer­nan­do as Fyr­na­tion pre­pares to trans­form the streets in­to a spec­tac­u­lar show­case of colour, cre­ativ­i­ty and re­gal splen­dour for Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day 2027.

Un­der its pre­sen­ta­tion, “Dy­nasty—The Em­pire of Crowns”, the band promis­es a ma­jes­tic cel­e­bra­tion in­spired by roy­al pow­er, leg­endary rulers and the en­dur­ing lega­cies of an­cient em­pires.

At its band launch at La Trop­i­cal Club on South Truck Road, La Ro­maine, on Sat­ur­day, pa­trons were in­tro­duced to six vi­brant sec­tions, each draw­ing in­spi­ra­tion from a dis­tinct civil­i­sa­tion and its cul­tur­al her­itage.

Azteca, The Sun Dy­nasty, cel­e­brates an­cient Mesoamer­i­can civil­i­sa­tions and the sym­bol­ism of the sun, while Sim­baza, The Li­on Dy­nasty, rep­re­sents courage, strength and re­gal pow­er. Ama­raya, The Gold­en Dy­nasty, cel­e­brates el­e­gance, beau­ty and roy­al splen­dour, while Im­peri­um, The Im­pe­r­i­al Dy­nasty, draws in­spi­ra­tion from the grandeur and au­thor­i­ty of an­cient Rome. Jade Drag­on, The Ce­les­tial Dy­nasty, ex­plores Chi­nese im­pe­r­i­al sym­bol­ism and the myth­i­cal pow­er of the drag­on, while Sako­gun, The Silent Dy­nasty, draws in­spi­ra­tion from his­tor­i­cal Japan­ese war­rior tra­di­tions, dis­ci­pline and el­e­gance.

Speak­ing at the launch, band­leader Sasha Sinanan said Fyr­na­tion rep­re­sent­ed a new chap­ter in a Car­ni­val jour­ney root­ed in San Fer­nan­do’s rich mas­quer­ade tra­di­tion.

“Fyr­na­tion Car­ni­val rep­re­sents a new chap­ter in a Car­ni­val jour­ney deeply root­ed in San Fer­nan­do’s rich mas­quer­ade tra­di­tion. Of­fi­cial­ly es­tab­lished as an in­de­pen­dent band in 2026, Fyr­na­tion was born out of a pas­sion for Car­ni­val and a vi­sion to help re­vive the spir­it of play­ing mas in San Fer­nan­do”.

He said: “Our con­nec­tion to Car­ni­val, how­ev­er, goes back gen­er­a­tions. I am proud to be a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Car­ni­val band leader, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of my fa­ther, Joey Sinanan, who led Wingo­lay, one of the largest Car­ni­val bands in San Fer­nan­do dur­ing the 1980s”.

De­scrib­ing the in­spi­ra­tion be­hind the pre­sen­ta­tion, Sinanan said, “Dy­nasty brings to­geth­er six dis­tinct cul­tur­al in­spi­ra­tions, each in­ter­pret­ed through the cre­ativ­i­ty, colour and artis­tic ex­pres­sion of Car­ni­val. The theme al­so has a per­son­al con­nec­tion for me. Com­ing from a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Car­ni­val fam­i­ly, I un­der­stand the im­por­tance of her­itage and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of car­ry­ing some­thing mean­ing­ful for­ward.”