Doing Jonkonnu Research in Crowd-Funded Jamaica Trip

We reached out to you to help fund our work in support of revitalizing Jamaica's Jonkonnu tradition.  You exceeded our expectations and put us over our GoFundMe goal, which allowed us to travel to Jamaica and conduct important research and field work on the status of the tradition. Our findings were shared with our major grant funder, Alliance for California Traditonal Arts (ACTA) and with the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC), who assisted us in completing the work. 

As a result of information gained from our research, we created new costumes for some of the traditional characters and commissioned new music. We presented successful Jamaica Jonkonnu installations and performances in Leimert Park, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and the City of Santa Clarita, among other venues.  In addition to sharing the tradition internationally, one of our main goals in doing this work is to make the tradition more relevant to contemporary Jamaican youth who we hope will take ownership of sustaining the tradition.