The two highly competitive local junkanoo groups in Harbour Island – the Warriors and the Zulu Dancers – did not disappoint this 2025 holiday season. The Boxing Day Junkanoo parade in Harbour Island was a feast for the eyes, with colourfully creative costumes, lead pieces, free dance characters, and strong live brass and drum music performances from both groups.
Spectators from mainland Eleuthera streamed from boats onto the local dock, where a $10 entrance fee gave access to the island’s premier Christmas season event. Two other entrance locations, on the island-side, also saw a consistent stream of parade-goers queueing up for tickets. The parade, and junkanoo festival, hosted along the downtown bayfront road of Harbour Island on the Friday evening of the Boxing Day holiday, December 26th, 2025, saw a mass of holiday season visitors and local Briland and Eleuthera residents filling out the parade venue ahead of the start, which got underway around 8:00 p.m.
A double line of patrons lined either side of the Bay Street roadway, as parading junkanooers wowed the crowds with well-worth-the-wait performances. The adjoining vendor’s site, along Briland’s dock beachfront, also offered food and drinks throughout the evening.
The night kicked off with the first A-Division competing group, the Zulu Dancers, in a presentation themed, ‘Celebrating World Festivals’ – with a huge lead costume piece, complete with a young beauty atop a seated throne-like dais, along with off-the-shoulder creations, free dancing characters, and step downs, inspired by Mexico’s Day of the Dead Festival, and a sizeable Brazil ‘Rio Carnival’-themed choreographed dance troupe – showcasing carnival inspired costumes, along with brass and drum sections.
The Warriors followed, highlighting a theme of “Games, Toons, and Toys”, complete with large lead pieces featuring vintage video games – like Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers on one, followed by a Scooby Doo set, 101 Dalmations, as well as a sizeable lead piece with The Smurfs. The Warriors’ vibrant choreographed dance section of winged warrior goddesses were attired for entertainment battle with staffs and fans in hand, and a well-timed group dance performance.
The Bahamas’ National Junkanoo Committee (NJC), adjudicated the Boxing Day competition in Harbour Island, and the unofficial results, announced at the end of the evening, placed the Warriors in first place, unseating the 2024 winners – the Zulu Dancers, who came in second.
NJC Deputy Co-Chair, Kishlane Smith, commenting on the successful evening in Harbour Island, shared, “Firstly, I’d like to congratulate the Harbour Island Junkanoo community for their participation, their wonderful support and most importantly, the zeal of Junkanoo to ensure that there was a successful 2025 Boxing Day parade on the island of Harbour Island. I am extremely impressed with, and I said this publicly, I’m impressed with the organizing of the choreograph section. The instructors of the choreograph section should receive special acclamation. The routines were superb and the lines were straight and the transition from one section to the other was just excellently executed.”
Mrs. Smith added, “I am also very happy, as was explained by the senior officer on island, it was an incident free parade and we look forward to many, many more successful Junkanoo parades on Harbour Island.”
