Space Unknown | a spontaneous space activation collaboration

a magical space activation thru a sequence of unplanned events...

filmed on the solstice, december 21, 2010 just off de western main road, in trinidad...a tiny, galactic, globally-connected island just a few strokes north of south america

space activation & film by binahkaye joy

spontaneous collaborator & camera direction by emmanuel king

when i set out for "the beach", my maxi-taxi driver assured me that this was the "best place to go, for sure", and so i ventured into this space looking for the familiar beauty and grandeur of lush sands and buena vistas, and instead found myself another character in a scene of wonder, chaos, and community...

this is just an excerpt from a day of awesome art-making in the organic space activation laboratory...




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Stay tuned to the JOYISM! blog and be a part of my dance journeys in Trinidad. 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.

#6 Carnival {10 things I want from Trinidad}

“The soul of the people is in its dance…”

Imagine. A whole country dancing, everyone finding some rhythm in the body, some interpretation of the space, and sharing it with the whole. This is paradise to me. Not just the fancy costumes, and Trinidad’s tropical climate, and the sensual abundance of the féte—but Carnival as the ultimate communal dance jam is ecstasy to me! It is massive, and the whole island stops to commemorate its majesty. This is ancient genius at its best, an annual ritual where everybody belongs! Again, in the expert opinion of a Visionary Space Activator, the human community’s collective dance is how we reach world peace. Carnival is literally how we move in love.

I first heard of Carnival in a GQ magazine when I was about 16. A big feature story opened with a Carnival Queen’s huge gold feathers taking up both pages. I remember thinking, “I belong in her world. There is something here for me.” A few months after coming across the article, my friend Keita’s mother, who was from Trinidad, took a group of us to Washington, DC’s Carnival in June 1998. My life was transformed forever.

HOW I had managed to grow up in DC, just across town from this annual communal soul celebration and never know about it, blew my mind. I was soooooo at home in Carnival's street, being carried by the force of the people down Georgia Avenue. The loud bands blasting music from the trucks, the mud people streaking through us with glee. Keita’s mom bought all of us Trini flags to wave in the air, and we jumped and danced down the mashed up parade—I was in heaven!

After that little taste of dance divine, I started to crave more and more carnival. I wanted to go to New York’s labor day carnival, and then to Toronto’s…I wanted to dance in every carnival there was. I read After the Dance: A walk through Jacmel, by Edwidge Danticat (one of my favorites), and wanted to dance Haiti’s carnival. I decided I was part Bahiain somewhere in my blood and wanted to go to Salvador’s carnival. But more than any other country, I wanted to know Trinidad’s carnival. That instant resonation I felt all those years ago as a teen flipping through pages of a magazine is still strong within my spirit today.

As a Visionary Space Activator who has spent much of her life in places where movement is not fully celebrated, who grew up in a country where the closest thing to national celebration is the Superbowl—Carnival presents the ultimate opportunity to dance in peace with my tribe of indigenous dancing, booty-shaking, soul gyrating humans. Such people are certainly scattered throughout all nations. But the intensity of a million dancing bodies in one place is a spiritual retreat for someone like me who is often the only body dancing up the space. I have been loved and feared alike in the United States for my spontaneous, open space dance process. I am excited to surrender myself to the communal movement, where it's already understood that everyone can dance here.

As much as I have wanted to experience Trinidad’s carnival for myself, I have also always wanted to witness life in the country when it wasn’t carnival time. So, I chose to start my dance residency in November and stay through the winter (we’ll there is no winter in Trinidad!) months and participate in carnival in March. I am sure what little I think I know about Carnival will be exploded into a symphony of wondrous, paradoxical happenings. Whatever it is I do finally experience, the dance will lead me through!

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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.

#4 Bake N' Shark {10 things I want from Trinidad}

For Marva, my Trini fairy godmother

Firstly, I know nothing about bake n' shark, except that I will stretch my vegetarian-esque palette enough to try it—a local Trini dish comprised of fried shark meat between fried dough with sensational toppings—at least once. But, this post is actually about my Trini fairy godmother, Marva Telemaque (nee Morris), who was the first person to ever mention the words "bake n' shark" to me. In telling me about one of her homeland's classic culinary treats, she reactivated my already heightened fascination with all things Trinidadian. Even more, she watered the seeds of my Trinidad journey long before I knew it was going to grow.

I met Marva through divine intervention. 6 years ago, on my first day as a temp at the Grey Box, which many of you affectionately call, The Washington Post, I had a choice between working with the "Auto Advertising Service Team" or the "Jobs Advertising Service Team." I chose Jobs because at least I could look for other jobs while I worked. When I was escorted to my new section, Marva was the first person I met. I remember thinking, "Oh, I've definitely chosen the right place!" A bright, bubbly woman with locs just like mine greeted me with warm eyes and a big smile. Moments after introducing myself to everyone, Marva called me over to her desk. With the prerogative all mothers take with their children, she looked right through me and said in a bold, demanding way, "Chile, what are you doing here! You are not supposed to be pushing papers like this. Hurry up and get on with the dance!"

I was stunned, she'd just met me and confirmed what at the time I was not ready to embrace. I had just finished college, and felt pressured to "do something" with the degree. Of course, I couldn't tell you what or where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to dance in some capacity, but did not possess the confidence to craft my journey. Looking back I see the synchronicity of wandering into Marva's section. Everyday for the 9 months I worked in the Grey Box, Marva asked me, "how's the dance?" or "what have you done for the dance today?" She held me accountable to my dreams, when they were rickety and fragile with fear, merely secrets sketched between the pages of my journals. Marva's love and faith nurtured my embryonic creative powers during a pivotal gestation period. There are times when we need someone else to be our dreams' advocate, and I am eternally grateful that Marva was so generous with her spirit.

Marva also shared her art with me. She wrote poems everyday about dance, her art, her children Charlene and Justin—the loves of her life, her prayers for humanity, her spiritual devotion. Marva, or Marva Maah! as I grew to call her, taught me the power of positive intention and how our thoughts and words set the path in motion. Oftentimes we would go to lunch together and she would tell me stories of her life, of Carnival, of her family in Trinidad, of her experience of the United States. She would paint glorious pictures of how one day, when she moved back home, and I was a world-famous dancer, I would be her guest while dancing in Trinidad. And we would go to the beach sometime, and get the bake n' shark, and then go dance to the steel pan band.

It is the ultimate irony that on the eve of my Trinidad journey, I have lost all contact with Marva. And so I write this with the prayer that someone will reconnect us very soon. Perhaps she is even already there in Trinidad and we will bump into each other on Maracas Beach, where bake n' shark apparently originated, and have our long overdue reunion. A few nights ago I had a dream that we found each other, so I figure that's a good sign. I will close out with Marva's classic mantra, very appropriate for all of us needing the extra push towards our dreams sometimes, and the reminder that we are the ones responsible for our happiness: "DOOOO YOOOO CHILE!"

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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.

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