For the love of laugh Joan McKenzie fighting to keep passion for drama alive

Drama queen Joan McKenzie is on a mission to stop aspects of Jamaican culture from dying out — by launching her very own performing arts academy for talented children.

The 27-year-old actress and teacher revealed how young people are turning their backs on traditional culture, admitting that some pupils can’t even be bothered to show up for Heritage Day events.

Now, the passionate Clarendon-born star has set up the Hope Performing Arts Studios under her Joan McKenzie Production Company to train 14 to 20-year-olds and spark a fire for local theatre.

McKenzie, who now lives in Kingston, told THE STAR that her love for the stage started when she was a little girl acting in front of nature.

She stated: “Being a teacher was always part of the plan. I used to watch plays and re-enact them to my dog or trees, and I mean getting a stick and poking an orange on it for a microphone. I love drama that much”

After starting her teaching journey a few years back, Joan knew she needed to build something of her own to give kids from tough, rural backgrounds a proper chance.

She said: “Summer of 2020 I went into teaching and mi never really like how some a thing them go. So I decided why not start my own little nursery for students. I went through a lot while at college, and I know a lot of young girls from backgrounds I am from who just need a way out, and I want to nurture some talent, give them a start and greater appreciation for the arts,”

“My aim is to go in the rural parishes, but life hard right now so I have to start small and we are recruiting now,” she noted.

Her own passion for performing was sparked in a classroom at Chapelton All-Age School, where she first started making money from her talent!

She said: “When you go to school you hear about the traditional doctor and teacher. But I first discovered that I am a visual artist. My teacher encouraged it, but I didn’t know it was a career,” laughing as she admitted charging classmates $5 and $10 to do their artwork.

Later, a grade six teacher used drama to help her study for exams — and Joan was hooked.

She recalled: “To study for my exams in grade six, one teacher used drama as a method for us to retain information and mi seh ‘Wait deh, mi like this, mi love this’ and when I went to high school, I definitely want to do the visual arts and acting,”

Now teaching grades seven through 11, McKenzie warns that traditional dances such as maypole and dinkimini are falling out of favour with the new generation.

She said: “I am 27 and that’s still young, and my peers would say I am old fashioned. But some of my students aren’t so much into roots culture, they are more into what they would call a modern culture,”

She revealed that traditional calls like ‘Crick’ and ‘Crack’ are barely answered in class anymore, adding: “It’s dying out a bit but as a role model, I am trying my best to not make it fully go to black. So I try to meet them half-way, mix up the little bit a that and this, because we have to grow with them but still don’t kill the roots.”

On children skipping Heritage Day, she added with a laugh: “They don’t want to come. They don’t care about maypole and dinkimini anymore. We have to be using strategies like putting an exam on the day,”

McKenzie also slammed the lack of funding for creative subjects compared to science, saying arts teachers are “crying out for help” while society writes off Jamaican arts as “foolishness”.

She said: “I am trying my best and that’s why I want to start my own thing, and it can be successful in changing our thinking, and importantly continue the tradition in some way.”

From performing to trees as a child to leading a social media movement, McKenzie is determined to keep Jamaica’s roots booming. Outside school, McKenzie has taken TikTok by storm with hilarious clips playing Jamaican grannies and dancehall queens.

“I use my TikTok to put culture and theatre and meet the audience where they are at,” she said.