Traditional Folk Forms – Mento Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A staged Jamaican folk entry built around mento, the country’s rural string-band music and its steps, with the handbook treating mento as the music of other folk forms and no separate marking table of its own.

Traditional Folk Forms – Mento is the eightieth entry on the Jamaican national performing arts festival template and the thirteenth of the seventeen items in its Traditional Folk Forms discipline. Mento is the rural, acoustic dance music of Jamaica, played by small string bands and sung in a call-and-response style with topical, often humorous words. It sits behind a good deal of the island’s folk dancing, and that is exactly how the festival handbook treats it.

That point matters to anyone setting up a round. In the 2026 handbook the Traditional Folk Forms syllabus lists sixteen categories, from Quadrille to Medley of Folk Forms, and mento is not one of them. It appears instead as the music of other forms: the fifth figure of the Camp Style Quadrille is the only figure danced to a mento tune, the Contra Style Quadrille is danced to mento from beginning to end and exits to it, recorded mento is the usual accompaniment for the Maypole, and the Dinki Mini singing is described as the mento type. Mento is also named among the folk dances whose steps the Jamaican Creative Folk Dance category in the dance discipline may borrow.

The template nevertheless carries Mento as its own item, assigned as a team entry of men and women to all seven classes, so organisers who use it are running a mento-led staged piece that the handbook does not define. This page does not invent a rule for it. The practical reading is a performance in which the dancers, singers and band present mento music with its characteristic rotating-hip dance movement, judged on the same headings the handbook applies to its other traditional folk forms.

Organisers run it because mento is accessible, tuneful and easy for audiences to enjoy, and it lets a community group show a folk tradition that does not need drums made from goat skin or ritual content. Because there is no official definition, the person setting up the round should agree and publish the entry rules, such as team size, live or recorded music and time limit, before registration opens, rather than assuming the handbook’s other folk-form rules carry over.

Where Traditional Folk Forms – Mento is run

On eTalenter this item is used in one template, the Jamaican national performing arts festival template, where it is a Traditional Folk Forms entry assigned to all seven classes, Class 1 (ages 3 to 6) up to Class 6 (adults) plus the combined Class 7. The festival runs in three stages, parish auditions, parish finals and national finals, and only the top gold-medal group per class and category in a parish moves on. The handbook does not list mento as a category in its own right, so wherever the template is run, the organiser decides how a mento entry is presented.

• Jamaica (the national performing arts festival the template is built from)

Key facts

• Team entry of men and women together, in English; assigned on the template to Classes 1 to 6 and the combined Class 7
• The 2026 handbook has no Mento category in its list of sixteen traditional folk forms; mento appears only as music for the Quadrille, the Maypole and Dinki Mini, so this entry has no handbook rules of its own
• The template records a four-minute window with the warning bell at three minutes, scored out of 100, the same window the handbook gives most traditional folk forms
• The handbook’s general folk-form rules are the best guide to follow: no tights, leotards or T-shirts as costume, footwear that is uniformed, and 12 to 16 dancers with no more than six singers and musicians, though these are written for the listed categories
• Mento in the handbook’s wording is a style of music and dance movement; the Contra Style Quadrille is the one place where it is the music from start to finish
• Ideas, not rules, for a staged piece: build it around two or three mento songs in call and response, let the dancers sing as they move, and show the rotating hip action with a clear change of tempo between songs. Agree the rules with the organiser before rehearsing

On eTalenter, Traditional Folk Forms – Mento is filed under On Stage and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Traditional Folk Forms – Mento is most often entered as an Team competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to around 4 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Traditional Folk Forms – Mento

What a Traditional Folk Forms – Mento panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• The handbook gives no marking table for mento. The nearest fit is its table for the other traditional folk forms, worth 100 at parish auditions, 100 at parish finals and 50 at the national finals. Confirm with the organiser which table applies; the points below follow that table and are a summary, not a quotation of the rule
• Authenticity (20, 20 and 8) and traditional content (20, 20 and 8) carry the most: the songs, rhythm and movement should be recognisably mento and not a pop or dancehall piece with a mento label
• Relevance of form, theme and mood (15, 15 and 7) and role playing (10, 10 and 5): the piece should have a clear theme, such as a village gathering or a market day, and the dancers should act it rather than only step through it
• Movements and steps (10, 10 and 6) and musicianship, rhythm and tempo (10, 10 and 6): the hip rotation, the relaxed knees and the way the dancers stay with the band’s tempo, including any singing they do while moving
• Costuming (5, 5 and 5) and stage presence (10, 10 and 5): simple village dress that suits the era of the songs, and a team that holds the stage together from entrance to exit

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Traditional Folk Forms – Mento under Scoring Setup, or start from the full folk dance judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Traditional Folk Forms – Mento

How entrants and their teachers usually get Traditional Folk Forms – Mento right on the day:

• Settle the rules first. Ask the organiser whether live music is required, how large the band may be and what the time limit is, since the handbook has no mento section to answer these
• Choose songs that are genuinely mento and know their story. Traditional mento is topical and often witty, so the team should understand every verse they sing
• Teach the hip rotation slowly with relaxed knees before adding the music, then add travelling patterns, circles and lines so the stage picture changes
• Practise singing while dancing. If the dancers sing, breathing and tempo are easy to lose, so rehearse the songs seated, then walking, then in full movement
• Keep the band balanced so that it supports the singing and does not overpower it, using only traditional instruments if the organiser follows the handbook’s folk-form rule
• Dress the team in simple, period-appropriate village clothing and avoid sports kit or leotards, which the handbook bars from folk-form costume
• After the result, ask for the adjudicator comments and find which heading lost marks. If authenticity was low, listen to older recordings with the team; if tempo was low, drill the songs with a metronome

Frequently asked questions

Is Traditional Folk Forms – Mento judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Team entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

Is Mento a separate category in the national festival handbook?

No. The 2026 handbook lists sixteen traditional folk form categories and mento is not among them. It is named as the music for the Quadrille and Maypole and appears in the Dinki Mini description. The template carries it as its own item, so the organiser sets the rules.

What is mento?

Mento is Jamaica’s rural acoustic folk music, played by small string bands with call-and-response singing and often topical or humorous lyrics. Its dance movement features a rotating action of the hips.

How long is a Mento entry?

The template records four minutes with a warning at three, which matches the time the handbook allows most traditional folk forms. As the handbook has no mento rules, confirm the limit with the organiser.

Does a Mento entry need live musicians?

The handbook has no mento rule, but it asks for live traditional instruments in most of its folk forms and recorded mento in the Quadrille and Maypole. Decide and announce which applies before registration opens.

Is Mento the same as the Quadrille?

No. The Quadrille is a European-origin couple dance of eight performers; only one figure of the Camp Style and the whole Contra Style are danced to mento music.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full folk dance judging criteria guide, or browse every on stage competition item.