(Oranjestad)—This past Sunday, Aruba carnaval organization SMAC released their official list of winners for the grand parade of Aruba’s 69th carnaval. One of the categories on the list was “Best Road Show”, and the winner for this category was local dance group Kids & Youth in Action. The group was accompanied by the Grand Queen of carnaval 69 during their performances.
Kids & Youth in Action is a local dance group that has been in existence for 30 years now. For the carnaval queen’s election, this group was invited to support contestant Adrianne Jacobs, who was crown as Carnaval Grand Queen on January 22nd. Because of her title, she was given the responsibility to open all parades.
The dancers from KYA, choreographed and managed by Raisa Montilla during the carnaval festivities, accompanied the queen during the grand parades in San Nicolas and Oranjestad this past weekend.
Montilla, who also choreographed Jacob’s show during the queen’s election, expressed to our reporter that she feels honored that the group won the title for Best Road Show, adding that it is a great recognition for all the hard work put in by the dancers, the queen and her team.
“Preparations for election day were pretty tough; we trained practically every day for two weeks. After the elections, we were happy about how the show turned out and we were also invited to be a part of Adrianne’s team to accompany her during the parades. We of course couldn’t resist, we were very willing to join in on the parades,” she stated.
She also expressed that the children were very excited to join the parades, and that this was the first time that some of the children will be partaking in these parades. She stated that they danced from beginning to end.
“The kids had a lot of fun. This was the first time many of them joined the grand parade. It was hard though, because the sun was very bright and the route was very long; 5 hours dancing is not easy, but they all did their best. They looked great, but most importantly, they enjoyed it. I want to thank Royal Carnival Group and Adrianne’s team for allowing us to join Aruba’s carnaval queen.”
