Introduction

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a resource about Moko Jumbie, a traditional carnival masquerade, for artists and scholars here in the Caribbean and for interested members of the international community. This blog is especially designed as an artistic community where Moko Jumbies can dialogue about their art form and share skills, ideas, and knowledge with each other. The currently existing body of information (written, photo and video) on Moko Jumbie is very limited. Therefore, in an effort to further the art form, I am starting this blog to share my knowledge and to invite others to share information, photos and video. Together, we can contextualize our art form and create a modern portrait of The Moko Jumbie.

My name is Tasha Connolly and I am a Circus and Carnival scholar from Hartford, Connecticut in the United States. Hartford has a significant West Indian population and hosts a small Carnival celebration every year. Also 2 hours south of Hartford, in Brooklyn, New York, is one of the largest diaspora Carnival celebrations in the world. I first came to Trinidad to pursue Carnival Studies at the University of the West Indies from 2007-2008 with a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship. My training as a Moko Jumbie comes out of the Keylemanjahro School of Art and Culture in Cocorite, Trinidad. Keylemanjahro was founded in 1985 by Dragon DeSouza, who has become famous for his work in reviving the Moko Jumbie masquerade in Trinidad Carnival after it had virtually gone extinct. Dragon taught himself how to walk stilts as a child using two sticks and holding a shovel for balance. He then went on to train thousands of Moko Jumbies in the Keylemanjahro style, including myself, which has lead to a thriving presence of Moko Jumbies in modern Trinidadian Carnival. His work has also contributed to "The Brooklyn Jumbies" in New York, who's founders were Keylemanjahro-trained. Photographer, Stefan Falke, did a photo-documentary project about Keylemanjahro that got turned into the book, Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad.

To see video postings of The Brooklyn Jumbies click here.
To see video postings of The Keylemanjahro School of Art and Culture click here.

As a white American of Jewish-Irish heritage, some people have asked me why I have come to Trinidad to study Carnival. My interest in Trinidadian Carnival comes from my recognition of Carnival as a powerful form of visual dialogue, oral/visual history, and empowerment. As a person who comes from a society that owes so much to it's African heritage, yet claims itself to be white, I greatly appreciate Carnival as an art form that celebrates African history and culture in the diaspora and serves as a tool for the post-colonial world to heal, re-educate, and empower itself. I think that the establishment of hundreds of yearly carnival celebrations all over the world in the last several decades, are a testament to how much the Caribbean, a region that is so often undervalued internationally, has to teach and offer the world.