The Fall BootyNox

When the seasons change, our bodies respond to the shifting environment. The way we walk and navigate space is strongly shaped by how the air feels on our skin. As your faithful Liberated Booty Coach, I am happy to advocate for your booties as the fall equinox dawns and sets many of us on the path to a crisp and cold winter. Oftentimes the Booty is the last thing on our minds as we focus on acquiring coats, hats, and shoes that can bear the frigid conditions. The Booty grows stiffer each day, not so much from the temperature dropping, but rather from the lack of attention we give the Booty after we lock it down under layers of warmth. So being proactive and sincerely booty conscious, I’ve created a special recipe of seasonally-sensitive liberated booty movements that will keep your booty activated and help you sustain your internal oven no matter what’s happening outside. Here's a brand new recipe for you to taste with your own booty...enjoy!


Recipe #56:
The Fall BootyNox

1. In a space that feels good to you, stand with your feet a little wider apart than usual. Bend the knees softly so that you can bounce gently and comfortably through your dance. Breathe in and out, allowing your body to find a home in a position that feels peaceful for you.

2. Imagine your booty is morphing from the vibrant heat of summer into the mellow coolness of autumn. What variety of shapes can you make to express this shift? What speeds, rhythms, or movement textures (choppy, smooth, tense, loose, etc.) does your booty choose to illustrate the shedding of summer into fall?

3. Try the morphing process over and over until you find your BootyNox. When you feel you’ve found the movements you love, experiment with traveling and changing levels. If you’re in another part of the world experiencing a different season, be aware of how the climate is initiating movement within you.

4. Wherever you are practice your BootyNox or create a new one. Share yours with a partner and try on someone else’s BootyNox. Record yourself dancing your BootyNox on different days and see how your booty continues to activate throughout the autumn season.

5. This is fun to do outside in your backyard or at your favorite park. Dance with the breeze, the crunch of leaves under your feet, or any other things that excite you about your surroundings. If you want to be inside, play your favorite music or just enjoy the song of your breath. As always, there are infinite ways to make this BootyNox your own!

booty portrait by colin danville

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.

The process of "Space Activation"

As a Visionary Space Activator, I interpret the elements of any space through my vibrant, dancing body. Every space offers a unique cocktail of textures, shapes, sounds, smells, colors, air quality, history, meaning, community purpose, and much more. The space in which I dance interacts with my physical/ emotional/ spiritual/ creative body in different ways, and this union of body and space births a new dance each time.

I am interested in experiencing movements that I have created for “Adelaide Ocean Lullaby”, a segment of The Mother Project dance journey, in all types of spaces throughout Trinidad and Tobago. My great-great grandmother Adelaide Fisher Brown was from Jamaica, and immigrated to the United States after falling in love with a fisherman. I weave what little facts I know about Adelaide’s life into an intuitive movement process that continually evolves within each space I encounter.

When I dance, I experiment with many components of the space, incorporating the dip of the hills in Santa Margarita, the crash of the sunset tide at Las Cuevas against my body, the urgent siren pleading its way through Friday afternoon rush hour on Western Main Road. It is within the wondrous laboratory of organic, unscripted (oftentimes public) spaces that I feel most free to delve into the choreographic possibilities of The Mother Project. I tune into the spatial sensitivities of the moment and discover new patterns and sensations of movement along the way. While in this increased state of creative openness, I ponder the unknowns of Adelaide’s story in my body, filling in the gaps with a dance that expresses my intuitive process of ancient memories, emotions, language, and movement.

The dance is still young in my body, eager to bloom amongst the many frequencies of Trinidad and Tobago’s ripe and abundant spaces.



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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.