Clerona Cain

Clerona Cain is from St. Lucia, where she grew up playing Mas and learning all aspects from building costumes to developing choreography for display. She worked as a tourism professional in St. Lucia and danced with the Silver Shadow Performing Arts Company which toured around the Caribbean and also Venezuela. From 2015-2020, she taught the teens dance movements that she created with them, also instructing on display and dance while wearing the costumes, so they learned performance skills. Clerona’s work was vital for the good presentation of the costumes, and she mentored and supported the teens who were required to perform intensively as the main attraction at the Taste of Hartford event and during the long route of the West Indian Parade. She choreographed the dance routines that the teens performed onstage at the Festival held at Bushnell Park after the Parade, and also developed a routine for them to present at the Wadsworth Atheneum Block Party. Clerona led a public dance workshop at that event. She “carried” (wore) the project’s large Queen costume in the Parade in several years. She also provides in-school programs in Mas costume-making and dance with the arts education organization Hartford Performs.