In Residence at The Republic: The 5th Dimension
In Port of Spain, I live in a 100 year old wooden house on a hill in
St. Ann's - an area most known as home to Trinidad's only state run mental institution. The house I live in is owned by
Edward Bowen, a Trinidadian visual artist, and I share it with Guardian writer, Attillah Springer and Svenn "Condom Man" Grant. It is a beautiful house that is surrounded by (and supported structurally in some places) 4 mango trees from which we never get mango but are only privy to the loud SLAM! on the galvanized roof when one falls.
On the property, are small plots of land on which we (with the help of guests at our numerous house warNings) have planted tomatoes, sweet pepper, scallion, bokchoy, and basil. We also have paw-paw, bay leaves, Spanish thyme, vervaine, a pyramid, lemongrass, aloes, and shining bush growing in the yard. Yes, I said a pyramid. I once had a visitor who said he could feel the presence of quartz
throughout the land. "Good vibes," he assessed. The
hill is also home to
The Studio Annexe, Bowen's art studio and gallery. (Eddie recently closed an exhibition entitled "
Recent Painting &
Collages 2005-2007" at
IN2ART LTD.) And a little further up our hill, is the apartment schoolhouse of
Gillian Goddard - who owns
Sun Eaters Organics.
We've named the entire grounds - The Old House, the Annex, the Schoolhouse, all the shacks, land, ourselves as a group, everything - "
The Republic of Sydenham". (
See pictures of The Republic here.)
A Republic flag has steadily eluded us, as if to reject any and all symbols
of government. On any given day, one can find a bucket of moving
compost, 3 bottles of wine, a sound clash and lively conversation
punctuated by moments of dance. We "have" 4 rude cats and are frequently visited by crapo (frogs) - which
is highly auspicious and further proliferates the vibe. I write this blog series from one of 2 hammocks in the gallery - an
Om
symbol to the right, Tibetan prayer flags blowing above on the left,
and the sound of Jacob Miller running through my body. This goodness is
what makes Trinidad so sweet.
When fellow Republicans, Svenn and Attillah, are
out shooting video for their weekly show
"New Voices" (and even when
they're home actually), I take advantage of the space and lovely wooden
floors. I dance. In the video
"Sydenham Solos" (seen
below), I share an excerpt of movement I am working with for "
Fresh
Water." Sharing the video was an afterthought, demonstrated by the odd
camera angles achieved by throwing my MacBook wherever and hitting
record. Nonetheless, there are many ideas in the video that I look
forward to exploring in the upcoming
FreshWork series of workshops. And
many other spontanteous happenings that I like - the wind blowing from
the fan and my sticking out my tongue in a very Kali-esque moment:
It is a blessing to be able to live in Trinidad again and to do so in the setting of The Republic of Sydenham. At the same time, I realize that my life in Trinidad will
again manifest differently. Work in the U.S. continues to call me away with increasing frequency. I've been wanting to respond to a strong pull to Mozambique soon again. And, just last month, I was accepted into the
Hollins/ADF MFA Program. I understand that both
the space and
my space in Trinidad has changed. Magically, both my family
homes in Curepe and
San Fernando no longer exist -
a
fact finalized last year. I feel I've been gifted the freedom to envision a
new reality for myself here.
I'm free.
I see my time here in a lab setting. For some time now, I've dreamt of this lab - a place in Trinidad for dance artists to live and create; a place where people can come to heal, to be engaged, to learn, and where you can get wi-fi in the bush. It is a dream recently affirmed when I attended
Alternative Dimensions in
Piparo - a forest in the hills of Southern Trinidad. AD is a concert that offers an alternative musical experience to the mainstream carnival music of T&T. The event was hosted by
Sheldon Blackman, son of
Ras Shorty I (pioneer of soca music) on his family's vegetable farm. It was meaningful to end the Carnival season with a return to these roots.
A group of vultures (called '
corbeau' in Trinidad) greeted us as we entered the dirt trace that would take us to the
5th Alternative Dimension. "
Rain," I think, in remembrance of Oxum. (The making of 'Fresh Water' has made me keenly aware of these signs -
the corbeau and the significance of this being the 5th AD.) I arrive just as Collis Duranty's
Unlimited Soul Project was playing. (That day's line-up also included
Sheldon Blackman, Shakeela, Rembuntion, Isaac Blacman & The Love Circle, Dixie-Ann Hunte, Kevon Thomas, Gillian Moore,
Brother Resistance, UnCut and Tony Wiley.) I grin in epiphanic ecstasy the whole time. Then, it begins to rain.
It is here, deep in the forest, that I know. I know coming home was a good thing. I also know my time in Trinidad will change. It is here, that I have come full circle.
A Love Circle. It is here, that I remember my dreams. And I realize how close I am to making it all
a new reality.
Posted by Makeda Thomas at 10:33 AM - Permalink
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Carnival Come & Gone
Nowhere in the world can one find the scale, level of creativity, and organization as in Trinidad's Carnival. It is a multi-million dollar industry that involves tens of thousands of people and hundreds of events.
Visit the Caribbean Beat blog for information on the winners of this year's National Carnival competitions for Dimanche Gras, Soca Monarch, Panorama, and the King and Queen of the bands. The Carnival also involves Traditional Carnival character performances and regional programs. This year, for example, the
Downtown Carnival Committee saw
Lennox Joseph's portrayal of "
Homeless" and
Patricia Goddard's "
Ah Could Only See Half Meh Way in Inflation" as the winners in its
Ole Mas competition. All of the competitors portrayed an array of themes, but all were social commentary pieces. And this, is really the heart of Carnival.
Carnival Saturday brought the children out in the
Kiddies Carnival. Kiddies Carnival is vital to the continuation of Carnival. As a child, my mother made sure that my sisters and I participated in
Kiddies Carnival - whether in Trinidad or New York. One year, my
father even brought a Kiddies band in San Fernando. Here is a short video clip of this year's Kiddies Carnival:
After
Kiddies, I trekked home to get some rest for
Insomnia - a morning fete held at Mobs2 in
Chaguaramas.
Mobs2 is nestled
upon a ten acre lot in the rain forest over looking Welcome Bay. Imagine this:
Thousands of people are wining and jumping and waving to energetic soca artists at
dawn. People are dancing - ecstatically. One man is bareback. He is swinging his long dreadlocks around and around. He stops and begins to shake, shake, shake and then wine as though it is his last time to wine. Another group of men have carried in their own 4-foot cooler filled with enormous bottles of rum and tequila. One of the group jumps into the cooler and loudly says "Aaaahhhhh". A woman is rolling around in the mud screaming. At the same time, the crowd is being wet by three huge water hoses strategically placed throughout the fete.
"Water, Water, Water!", the crowd chants.
The
Laventille Riddim Section (whose music I used in a earlier version of '
Fresh Water') is "beating iron"- further sending people into a frenzy and preparing them for
J'ouvert. On the right is an Indian man selling coconuts to rehydrate the masses. Everyone, everyone has "gone clear" (lost their minds). This is the scene for Insomnia - a fete that began around 2am and continued until 12pm. 2 hours in traffic and 6 hours sleep later, I open the Sunday Daily Express.
Selwyn Ryan writes ".
..collective ecstatic dancing has therapeutic functions which are not often recognised by those who demonise such behaviour. Danced religions play a reproductive role in many societies; ecstatic dancing also serves to exorcise or attenuate feelings of morbid melancholia and depressions (aka spleen, the vapours, etc), boredom, ennui or other maladies...Interactive joy making likewise plays an important role in bonding, empowering subaltern groups....."
This release; this abandonment continued into J'ouvert morning where I played in "
Industrialise Dis" and
3 Canal's "
Shine". "Shine" subverted the whole idea of dirtying yourself in black and brown mud by using white paint instead. We screamed, crawled on our bellies, jumped in canals, insulted the Prime Minister and behaved devilishly. I was licked and bitten on 2 separate occasions. (The image to the left is of my J'ouvert mas. Yes, it's a little scandalous. But most of all, I was making a valid point in a country with a 1 in 100 HIV infection rate.) After all the J'ouvert madness - at 10AM - we all hobbled home to hose ourselves off:
I had exactly
1 hour to sleep before I had to meet my Carnival band in Port of Spain.
This is bacchanal!
Monday's mas is like a dress rehearsal. Band members wore the Monday outfit (
featured in this entry). We learn our parade route, get to know one another and prepare for Tuesday. (Playing mas could be an extreme sport. Masqueraders chip and dance for 12 hours in scorching heat for miles and miles. It's exhausting. And exhilarating.) And Tuesday? Well! Tuesday was mas! And what a mas it was! I am fortunate that the Carnival experience is so much more than just
Carnival Monday and Tuesday, for if so, I would have been decimated by
the disappointment of Island People's inability to cross more stages. I love mas. And nothing - not all the food and free Patron in
the world - can replace the experience of playing mas on stage. Island People made it to only 2 of the judging points, which caused great bacchanal among the masqueraders. But if you've been reading the blog series you'd know: Carnival is not Carnival without bacchanal!
Posted by Makeda Thomas at 6:25 PM - Permalink
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