Saturday 15th August: Celebrating Trinidad: a moko jumbie performance at The British Museum

An insight into the spirit of Trinidadian carnival came to the British Museum today, in a special performance of Moko Jumbie stilt-walkers in conjunction with Zak Ové’s current installation.  TouchDSky's costumes are inspired by the traditional masquerade folk characters whose roots can be traced to West and Central Africa.  You can see the immense scale of the height of the acrobatic structures as they loomed high against the columns of the museum.  The sun came out perfectly on cue for the metallic materials to shimmer and bright patterns pop.  After dancing in the forecourt, the event moved inside the Africa galleries for musical storytelling "Tales of the Orisha: myth, legend and lore" from legends of the African diaspora which have lasted 400 years.

(TouchDSky's Moko Jumbies by Alan Vaughan, Story Telling with Jan Blake and Ade Egun Crispin Robinson on Bata Drum Percussion)