#2 Community {10 things I want from Trinidad}

Binahkaye means “the dancer radiates OUR awesome powers”.

It has always been important to me to orient myself and my movement as a part of the community. As a dancer who values the contribution of every human being’s dance to our world, I reflect the infinite possibilities of the people’s dreams with my vibrant dancing body. When we dance, we paint testimonials of humanity with our bodies, etching the air and space with the purest expression of what we are choosing to experience right now. Coding our muscles with memories of our journey, and the knowledge gathered along the way, our dance at times is wiser than we know ourselves to be.

My dance evolution was steeped in communal awareness from a young age. It was in high school that I first fell in love with facilitating dance in communal, non-traditional spaces. At the church where I grew up, I nurtured the creative expression of women and girls who didn’t know that they too had something unique and essential to share when they danced. At the time I didn’t know that I was planting seeds for processes and approaches to movement that would form the core of my artistic journey.

I LOVE that feeling when I am dancing with someone who is at the beginning of her creative revolution. It is like watching someone give birth to her power, a power that was always there, but waiting to be actualized by the individual. That is what our dancing bodies do—they activate the innate creative force within us, enabling us with insights and wisdom that enrich our lives, propelling us toward greater realities.

Sometimes it is challenging to explain my perspectives on movement. It took me several years before I felt confident enough to express that I am not “teaching” you how to dance because you already know “how” to dance. Rather, I am encouraging you to TRUST your dance, to believe in your process enough to share your dance with us. I recognize that every person on the planet has a sacred dance that is like a vital ingredient in the recipe for world peace, love, and prosperity. If one person’s dance is compromised, the “soup is off”, humanity misses out on something. This awareness fuels my passion and my mission to dance with as many people on the planet as possible. EVERYONE has that essential piece we need to make the whole.

It was in Ghana, 8 years ago in a small village called Adalku in the Volta region where I danced one of the best dances of my life. A storm flew down onto the dirt, the mud softened my feet, and I was soaked in ecstatic praise as musicians clanged weathered metal parts together, conjuring up ancient spirits and savory beats.

I loved the participatory, inter-generational process of the community’s dance. Somewhere in my soul, the Divine whispered, “this is home.” Not home, as in a physical place, but home as in, this is where I am to birth my creative genius, here inside humanity’s dance.

Shortly after the dance in Adalku, a poem came to me, its opening lines becoming the mantra for the early stages of my career: “The Most Beautiful Dance You Do, Is the One You Do With Your People.” As I have journeyed and grown over the years, I continue to delve into my fascination with the organic movement that springs forth from communal dance exchanges. In Trinidad, I am eager to experience the frequencies of the people’s dance, the sway of the crowd, the gait of the walk, the dip of the back, the flutter of feet, the spin of a nation.

Every element of the community’s dance empowers the exploration within my own body, thereby allowing me to acknowledge and honor the ways in which the people express their truth. Imagine the global shift if we all valued and honored each other’s movement as a beautiful contribution to our lives. This sharing process cultivates the preservation and expansion of the human community’s dance. This is how WE dance towards peace, this how WE move in love.

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Stay tuned to the JOYISM! blog for the complete series, "10 things I want from Trinidad." Also, I will be writing about my dance journeys in Trinidad and posting them to the JOYISM! blog. Subscribe to the blog, join JOYISM!'s mailing list, "like" JOYISM! on facebook--stay connected to the dance!

Contribute! Make a donation to JOYISM!'s Trinidad dance residency at any time. Your support is always appreciated and is strengthening my ability to create dance and peaceful exchanges with communities around the world. Find out more about my program in Trinidad at www.dancejoyism.com.

Photos by Caroline Angelo

10 things I want from Trinidad: #1 Love

In ten days I begin the biggest journey of my life, thus far.

I studied dance and cultural arts in Ghana for a semester in college. That experience rocked my world, exploded my identities, and cracked the shell of my slow-to-bloom artistic freedom. 8 years later, after travels to India and Indonesia, after launching my own company, after acknowledging my creative super powers, after honing an advanced intuitive awareness, after falling in love with my highly-sensitive emotional artself--I am happy to report that I still know nothing. That when it comes to this journey to Trinidad, I am humbly, and courageously, a mother in labor, yet to birth myself along this path of cosmic unknowns.

I literally am growing into a whole new journey, one that will undoubtedly change my life forever, and activate awesome new portals of myself. Am I excited? YES! Am I freaked out and feeling scared? Yeah that comes too at times, sometimes several times a day. The faith in the journey is like the harness on a roller coaster ride. You get in. You say YES to the adventure. You strap yourself in because as you climb that steep hill, as your stomach falls into your toes, you know that the straps will keep you there, through the scariest parts of it, even when you want to turn back. There's no way out, only a way forward. Such is the same with faith, faith that all the pieces that need to come together will do so as I am ready to receive them. This faith is what keeps me moving forward amidst a vast ocean of uncertainty, inevitable storms of fear, and the gnawing illusion that home is a place outside of myself.


This is me, having contractions, 10 days out from a 6AM flight at DCA. My journey is coming.

In preparation of my journey, and because it is vitally important to me that the community be a part of JOYISM!'s inaugural international dance residency, I am initiating a series of essays entitled, "10 things I want from Trinidad". The series is inspired by the lovely Margaux Delotte-Bennett who created a list, "10 things I want from India," and incorporated the list into her one-woman show Black & Kinky Amongst Brown Waves. I will publish one "thing"/essay per day, as we count down to the start of the next phase of my life. I will also continue to write extensively about my travels and dance journeys in Trinidad over the coming months. Thank you for being a part of the dance!


#1 Love | in all forms, at all times. Love informs this whole dance journey of mine, at every juncture. Through every challenging, oftentimes painful, growth process that brings me to the present moment, love is the constant miracle. Especially when I am at the bottom of hope, when I am scared about taking the next step towards the inevitable expansion of a breaking heart, love pulses on.

Love is the nectar of my journey, the energy of creation that will push me, pull me, dance with me throughout the many dreams I will manifest along the way. Love is everywhere, and I am so happy that I know this to be true! I have been to many patches of the globe and have always experienced tremendous, genuine love from families, from professors, from guides, from strangers, from everybody.

I am excited to know love in a new world, to taste love with the spices and sensations of Trinidad's sacred, ancient, wondrous spaces, to awaken new capacities to love and be loved in returned, to feel the tender embrace of love and allow it to blossom within me.

Love is a process of knowing self, and radiating that awareness through one's life. This journey to Trinidad is my love supreme.

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Stay tuned to the JOYISM! blog for the complete series, "10 things I want from Trinidad." Also, I will be writing about my dance journeys in Trinidad and posting them to the JOYISM! blog. Subscribe to the blog, join JOYISM!'s mailing list, "like" JOYISM! on facebook--stay connected to the dance!

Contribute! Make a donation to JOYISM!'s Trinidad dance residency at any time. Your support is always appreciated and is strengthening my ability to create dance and peaceful exchanges with communities around the world. Find out more about my program in Trinidad at www.dancejoyism.com.

Photos by Colin Danville

The Mother Project & Trinidad | Starting November 2010

In November, I will travel to Port of Spain, Trinidad to participate in an exciting dance program where I will develop new work for "The Mother Project" dance journey. The dance residency is hosted by the Makeda Thomas Roots & Wings Movement! Institute. This is JOYISM!'s inaugural international dance residency project and a critical part of JOYISM! connecting and sharing movement exchanges with communities around the globe.

While in Trinidad I will be developing new work for "The Mother Project", a choreobiography of the mothers in my lineage, and a comparative study of the transference of identities as experienced by women and girls in the same family. The residency will also consist of a series of community dance projects, including sharing and facilitating dance with communities throughout Trinidad and Tobago. I will also be documenting and writing extensively about my dance journeys, through film, essay and blog.

The themes explored in The Mother Project dance journey affect all of us. Questions, stories, and experiences of the Mother connect all of us as human beings. The dance work that I have been developing for the past 4 years around themes of Mother continues to open up more and more opportunities for humanity to dialogue about issues critical to who we are and what we dream our world to be.

The Mother Project allows me a space to dig deep into my own family history, while also activating a global space for the world to discuss the realities, roles, experiences, and influences of mothers in all of our lives. Even more, as an in-depth exploration of the cultures of womanhood/motherhood/girlhood/sisterhood, The Mother Project engages women and girls in movement and dialogue around matters central to the growth of our self-actualized and self-asserted identities.

The Mother Project began as series of movements I created to paint pictures and tell stories about my mother, Debra, my grandmothers Gloria and Mary Malissa, and my great-grandmothers Mable and Mary. The more I explored the lives of one mother, the more I was moved to create movement for other aunts and grandmothers in my family, thus exploring different sides of mothering, womanhood, and choices. The choices each woman made directly and indirectly contribute to my existence and who I understand myself to be--and this phenomenon fascinates me and fuels my work. I often wonder what the world would be like if everyone was exploring the people and experiences that shaped them and birthed them.

In addition to the research and dance exchanges explored in Trinidad, the artisitic fruits of this residency will be an integral part of "The Mother Dance-Dialogue Workshop & Performance Series" that I will host as a community dance residency program in Washington, DC during Spring and Summer 2011.

Read more about The Mother Project and watch a video excerpt here. Also, read the post "Spinning Mary" to read about earlier developments of The Mother Project.

Photo by Elen Awalom

excerpt | artist statement 2010

I am a dance in progress at all times. My life exists as a dynamic dialogue between the simultaneous happenings of things past and present, of spaces here and there. I use all forms of art, but primarily movement and the written word to navigate the intricate realities and dreams that blossom throughout my cosmic earthly ride.

I embrace the duality of my life. The complimentary and paradoxical nature of my converging identities undoubtedly lives within my one body, and often inspires questions about who I think I am. The raw source material of accepting all sides of me gives texture, substance, and infinite variation to my dance, my writing, my fashion designs, everything! My joy is stimulated by vast, wide, open spaces, both literally and figuratively. I inevitably create art that dissolves barriers, labels, and boundaries. My art stems from an underlying truth that everyone’s story/dance/voice/body/emotion is valid and essential to a whole and prosperous world.

I am a highly sensitive emotional being. The process of discovering my feelings and my relationships to space, time, people, nature, and opportunities is my spirit’s dance journey. My keen emotional awareness enables me to critically and compassionately create art that resonates deeply with humanity’s most intimate and sacred issues. I reflect the artistic and kinesthetic potentials of the human experience by allowing my art to document my own journeys towards freedom and love. Being deliberately transparent about my art-making processes nurtures a very tangible quality of my art and communicates its relevancy to diverse communities.

At my core, I am a giddy scientist and every space that I encounter is a viable laboratory for my wildest dreams. I love to experiment, and all of the art that I create is born of this zest for surprises that experimentation always delivers. I boldly dig deeper into unknowns and find myself stronger, wiser, and more powerful because of the journey. I do not believe that there is a “wrong” way to explore my art. Be it a dance, a character, an opportunity—everything in my process is worthy of my own investigation. The present moment gives me the best indication of who I am choosing to be right now, and my art courageously reflects those choices at every stage.

Photos: Colin Danville, July 2010

free Liberated Booty dance workshop in DC Saturday 8.21

Binahkaye will be facilitating a LIBERATED BOOTY dance workshop for the Dance DC Festival Saturday, August 21 @ 2:30pm. All booties are welcome to dance. Remember: "A liberated booty is a liberated being!" Liberated booty is all about embracing the infinite wonders of your own, personal asset, pun intended! No experience necessary. Read more about the liberated booty workshop here!

Time: Saturday, August 21, 2010 @ 2:30-3:30pm
Location: Atlas Performing Art Center, 1333 H St, NE, Washington, DC 20002
Metro to Red line to Union Station (then walk, taxi or take X8) or go to Gallery Place (then free H Street Shuttle of X2 bus)

This Festival is FREE and open to the public and runs from August 20th-22nd at the location above. A variety of dance forms and performances will be shared...fun for the whole family! The festival is sponsored by the DC Commission for the Arts & Humanities.

full Dance DC Festival program here!


call 202.6JOYISM for more info!

www.dancejoyism.com

Watch this video for more history on Binahkaye's Liberated Booty movement!

sunset prayers | a short film

I made this movie by myself just before the close of perfectly sunny day. I wanted to capture a bit of my process in it's true form, even though I rarely dance in public spaces with a camera in tow. I tried to let the camera be non-imposing and just move, so that it feels like it's just "binah in her zone". Most times when I am dancing, I am sending a prayer to someone, or somewhere. When the earthquake hit in Haiti, I went to the roof of the Kennedy Center to vibrate some love with my booty rolls and swinging arms. There is so much power in our bodies to heal ourselves, but to also transmit LOVE to the whole globe, the whole universe. This dance that I do with my body has infinite and inevitable effects on the world around me. All of our dancing bodies has this power.

I am | Visionary Space Activator

I am a visionary space activator. I translate and activate the energy of any space with my moving body. I paint the picture of the moment with dance; I interpret the vibrational frequencies of the moment and express it through movement. I am a barometer of the cosmic mood of the people. I can express all realities with my body if i so choose.

I self identify as a visionary space activator. i invented this terminology to articulate my truth. I fully own this identity and am happy to educate others about who I say I am. It is critical to me, my movement process, my life that I identify only with realities that are 100% aligned with who I feel I am. It took me several years before I found a title that felt right for me. "Choreographer" and "Artistic Director" never fully resonated with me. I had to keep digging through my genius, keep dancing through lots of life's experiences, keep trusting my evolving process to get to the gem of my truth: Visionary Space Activator.

The journey into my truth has been every emotion possible. Sometimes I'm scared, other times I feel like I'm on top of the world. But most of all, through everything, I feel grateful that it's ALL ME. That at the start and finish of everyday, I lived and danced on my own terms, with my own language, and have planted or watered more seeds of my own understanding.

This journey into knowing is ongoing. I am constantly growing and evolving. Such is the nature of this dance that is me!

Photos by Colin Danville 2010

new youth love

This is the title of a playlist on my ipod for a new group of young people that I just began dancing with. They are fierce, brilliant, beautiful, and full of fears all at the same time. In bits and pieces they are coming into their own powers, recognizing their awesomeness one celebratory sway at a time. I was so overwhelmed after leaving their space that I had to go dance. Dance off the rage and absurdity of some of their energy, decompress from the profanity, the violence, the constant cries for attention with which some sought to disrupt our class. And at the same time marvel in the majesty of the movement that, in spite of everything, the youth lovingly birthed in our tiny dance laboratory.

I ventured off into the chaotic frenzy of recess time downtown. The lunchtime crowds of the 9-5 tribe and the enthusiastic first-time-in-DC tourists all clamoring for tables to slurp their caffeine shots and down their microwavable nutrition provided the backdrop for this day's space activation. I felt like air conditioning for a change and went to the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard inside the center of the National Portrait Gallery.

What awaited my dancing body was a surge of new movement material. I found a wide stretch of space to insert my dancing body and had a creative blast. The floor in the courtyard is also very smooth and soft to the soles of my feet, always a plus! I found myself soaring, mentally, emotionally, physically. I felt my body opening up into new rhythms and shapes. I was grateful to my youth muses for activating a new dance within me as I sought to process all that had happened in our workshop. In one class, we used nature themes as the motivation for our movement. I taught them the sign for "river" in sign language. Once they were comfortable with that, I asked them to "put the river in your legs, in your spine, in your neck...".

WOW! was all I could say after watching their movements transform their whole bodies. The textures and intricacies of their dance greatly contrasted the immature insults they were hurling just a few minutes before. They even began to celebrate each others creativity when they saw new movement coming from their peers. After the wind and the river, we became ice, and then we melted. The melting was a lot of fun. At first they thought I was weird of course for being so uncool as to actually melt into a puddle on the floor, but they had to admit it was a really fly transition. Soon after, a few of them began trying it out on their own, risking dust on namebrand jeans and possible scuffs on fresh kicks!

The result was a beautiful, organic dance sequence. One of my boys who had been mostly non-participatory jumped up and asked, "can we do a hurricane?". Sure, I said, and the group broke out into whirlwinds of arms and tilting torsos. They created the soundscore of storm, wind, rains with their voices and bodies. As I reflected later, I thought, hmmm, dancing out the storm is so healing. A constructive way to scream, shout, and release, and yet still be peaceful, (non-violent), and creative...

I love my new young people so much. They are inspiring a lot of growth and enthusiasm in me as a dancer but also as a movement educator. I look forward to the rest of the summer with them. Stay tuned for updates, I'm sure they'll keep me on my toes!

Photo by Caroline Angelo 2009

Rain Dance

Sometimes the rain comes just in time to take your dance activation to the next dimension. I am reminded of a sacred dance explosion that I surrendered to in a small village in Eastern Ghana seven years ago. Adalku, the place was called. And on a small patch of dirt in front of our humble quarters, the community made music with recycled metal parts. Old pieces of discarded technology made ancient rhythms that miraculously never grow out of style. The dance started in the sun but ended under shattered clouds and mud-soaked feet. One of the best dances of my life...so far.

There is something liberating about letting your clothes get mushed into the rain. Letting the water penetrate your skin and be the dance on top of your already gyrating body. Can you feel it? Have you known such joy? Dancing in the rain is a sweet treasure of this human experience. We usually hide and protect ourselves from nature's wet escapade. We roll up the windows, prop up the umbrellas, cover our soles with boots and wait with a pout for the sun to come out and dry our world off again. Perhaps dancing in the rain is so fun because it's a chance to "break the rules." An opportunity to satiate that playful spirit within that loves being messy, that loves being on a first-name basis with mother nature.

So too is our free, unfettered dance. Our dance loves to be submerged in nature. Barefoot, comfortable clothing, or naked if you please. The dance just wants you to be you in your most unadulterated sense. Without the trappings of material dramas or societal rules, or ego-trips. Your dance is like a flower that longs to be watered with the freshest, purest spring water. Ask yourself: "Am I feeding my dance the good stuff? Or am I clogging the roots of my flowers with the junk of status quos, fears, and insecurities about my body? Your dance knows that you are the only source of its life. Your body has to be the moving force that creates its reality.

I digress. I admit, I am rambling, hoping my words spark the creativity needed to finish some work that's due tomorrow. The tasks at hand: plan two hours of dance and play for a teenage youth camp, address the editor's notes on my children's book, figure out photoshop... But I was inspired by my photo shoot that took a joyous and unexpected turn for the best when a rain storm came to add to our creative mix. It was so fun dancing in the rain, barefoot and not a care in the world. If you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing your dance in the rain, be sure to run out in the thick of it and shake your booty the next time it pours in front of a window near you. Go ahead and get wet. The dance belongs to all of us, all the time.