Mission

The DHA aims to engage students, faculty, researchers, artists, dancers, musicians, staff, journalists, participants and others who are committed to the preservation and spread of knowledge about dancehall culture.  It will support and establish research and scholarship devoted to knowledge, art, culture, materials, organizations, movements and institutions of and about dancehall. The DHA will plan, organize and develop collections, initiate and participate in research activities, sponsor events and acquire material culture associated with dancehall in Jamaica and across the world.

Since dancehall’s early antecedents in Jamaica’s Sound System Culture of the 1950s and it’s coalescing into a globally recognized art form at the end of the 1970s dancehall continues to receive full support of its creators and key participants, while working to generate a wider level of support, based on its global appeal and recognition. From Kingston to Japan, Berlin, Rome, Lisbon, London, Santiago, Cape Town and beyond dancehall has maintained its gritty, hardcore reflections on social ills, harsh living conditions, injustice and the demands and often fantasised desires for better options for the dispossessed and marginalized. 

Through a range of upcoming projects and activities, the DHA will curate the various forms of dancehall material culture including fashion artifacts, technological tools, recordings, videos, websites, films, original papers, works, references, productions, conferences, interviews, publications, research, and formal proceedings. There are also plans to include a wide variety of responses to dancehall will in DHA’s archival material including academic courses at colleges and universities, arts and community organizations, choreographed works and musicals, among others.

Contact us at info@dancehallarchive.org for additional information and to get involved with our projects and activities.