presentations and tourist shows. Beyond Trinidad, they currently have a strong presence in the Virgin Islands, with Wilfred John of St Croix as a missionary in their cause for forty years. John runs the Guardians of Culture moko jumbies, who appear weekly at local hotels, and made a 2009 documentary called Mokolution tracing the roots of the tradition in the Virgin Islands. John notes a long tradition of male jumbies dressing in skirts with petticoats or bloomers, which changed in the 1960s when teacher Ali Paul moved to welcome women as jumbies, leading to costumes in other styles. John continues to work with schools to get more young people to take up the art, exploring ever more adventurous choreography. Today’s moko jumbie practitioners, in T&T and elsewhere, are working not just at preserving cultural heritage, but broadening and deepening what is possible, from choreography to design. They are offering young people, from both under-served communities and more middle-class backgrounds, opportunities to develop athletic ability and artistic skills, while building confidence and selfesteem. Junior Bisnath’s motto <strong>—</strong> painted on the side of his home <strong>—</strong> summarises the ethos: “Say yes to life, get high on stilts!” n Trinidad, and seeing moko jumbies as part of a <strong>Caribbean</strong> aesthetic that could be universal, Pinheiro has been involved in two decades of Carnival and other performances, major theatre events, and lots of workshops. A Keylemanjahro moko jumbie On the other side of the Atlantic, there is little ties on his stilts history of moko jumbies at London’s Notting Hill or other West Indian Carnival celebrations in Britain, but that is gradually changing. Touch D Sky’s popularity in T&T has led to an offshoot based in Newcastle-upon- and two friends. Since 2010, they have run after-school programmes in Brooklyn and Newark, New Jersey. They have participated in Kiddies Carnival in Brooklyn (last year, with all the dadian team. They run workshops and now perform with the Tyne run by Alan Vaughan, together with some of the Trini- girls costumed as butterflies and all the boys as dragonflies) and Elimu Mas Academy for Notting Hill. This year, Vaughan and the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. They’ve performed at Adrian Young developed performances working with contemporary dancers, an art performance called The Isle Is Full of Noises events of all kinds <strong>—</strong> birthday parties, weddings, political rallies, and even the funeral of a prince from Nigeria. (based on Shakespeare’s play The Tempest), and, in collaboration with choreographer Martin Hylton, the performance work The Universoul Circus, which started in 1994 and travels the United States, reflects black culture through circus arts. For many My Knowledge Increase, My Memories Reflect, a celebration of years, it has featured both limbo dancers and moko jumbies Martin Luther King, Jr, and the Civil Rights Movement. from Trinidad, offering perhaps the only full-time professional In 2016, Zak Ové, a British artist of Trinidadian heritage, was work available for practitioners. They hold auditions in Trinidad commissioned by the British Museum to build two moko jumbie to get the most accomplished from various groups. sculptures, seven metres tall, mounted in the museum’s entrance Meanwhile, in Toronto, Canada, moko jumbies have featured hall in conjunction with an African art exhibit. It was timed with in the work of the Swizzlestick Theatre, formed back in 1997, Notting Hill Carnival, and members of Touch D Sky performed growing out of the theatre and performance work of at the opening. The sculptures were ultimately chosen for the Christopher Pinheiro. Having worked in Minshall’s mas camp in museum’s permanent collection. 54 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
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