Shynel Brizan

Shynel Brizan is a professional Moko Jumbie performer and mas-maker from Pleasantville, Trinidad and Tobago. She is a two-time National Queen of Carnival winner — as Mariella, Shadow of Consciousness from the band presentation Palace of the Peacock by Moko Somõkõw (2019), and Olugbe-rere ko, the Spirit Who Brings Good Things (2022). In 2023, she placed 3rd as Aimeè, a Dancer of Freedom’s Cousinship to Epitaphs of Fate with Moko Somõkõw’s presentation of Carnival. Internationally, Brizan has taught Moko Jumbie workshops in Dominica and Jamaica, and performed in Grenada’s Spice Mas (2016) and London’s Notting Hill Carnival (2019). 

Photograph by Catherine Sforza