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.

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

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