"Patricia Gone with ... Millicent?"

Thursday 30 July, 2009, from 7.30 to 9.30 pm



Lord Invader, the Mighty Growler, Atilla the Hun, and the Roaring Lion in 1943

What is one subject that calypso has handled with some of its sweetest ingenuity and subtlest imagination? Homosexuality, believe it or not! Come listen! Whether you love the calypso artform and Trini culture or you have a personal or family connection to the topic, join community organiser Colin Robinson, cultural critic Charleston Thomas and others in a tent-like atmosphere at Alice Yard, where they will take in some two dozen recordings of fascinating calypsoes from the 1950s to the present that display surprising wit and intelligence in their treatment of same-sex love. The audience will be invited to share their own memories of other treatments of the topic, talk about the meaning of the music, why dancehall and calypso treat so differently with the same issue, and what implications the music and its history might have for debates about homosexuality in the current political moment. Plans for Carnival season activities on the topic will also be aired.

This is a free event supporting the mission of a new coalition, CAISO (Coalition Advocating Inclusion of Sexual Orientation), to promote an inclusive, 20/20 vision of sexual orientation and citizenship in Trinidad and Tobago.

For more information, contact: 758-7676 or tntavp@gmail.com

Erotic Art Week 2009 at Alice Yard

Alice Yard was one of ten locations participating in EroticArtTT, the 2009 Erotic Art Week (23 June to 2 July). Organised and curated by graphic designers Christian Alexis and Richard Rawlins, choreographer/writer Dave Williams, and architect Terry Smith, the Erotic Art Week programme included exhibitions and installations of visual work, a spoken word and poetry performance, and a discussion of erotic elements in Trinidad Carnival. Several dozen artists, musicians, and writers participated, at exhibition and performance venues scattered across a few blocks of Woodbrook.

Seven artists showed their work at Alice Yard: Marlon Darbeau, Jason Winter-Roach, Silverstar, Justine Hosein, Christine Healey, Sabrina Charran, and Rodell Warner. Below are some installation images. For more information, download the special Erotic Art Week issue of Draconian Switch.





Playful Things, by Marlon Darbeau, installed in the gallery space at Alice Yard. Photo by Damian Libert.



Photographs by Silverstar, installed in the residency apartment at Alice Yard.

Town, by Sheena Rose

Video still from "Town"

Artist Sheena Rose, visiting from Barbados, will project her animated video work Town on Friday 29 May at 7 pm, at Alice Yard, 80 Roberts Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain. The work will be introduced in dialogue with artists and writers Marsha Pearce and Jaime Lee Loy.

Rose is a recent graduate from the BFA programme at the Barbados Community College. Since graduating she has shown work at the Zemicon Gallery and in the Sign of the Times digital art exhibition at Queen’s Park in Bridgetown. Rose was also commissioned to produce an animated video as part of the Black Diaspora Visual Arts Symposium and Exhibition, curated by David A. Bailey in February 2009. Her participation at Alice Yard was funded in part by the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) Barbados and the OECS.

"The primary focus of my animation is something that I can arguably say everyone struggles with, and that is constantly thinking about our daily problems. There are not very many times during the day when our minds are at rest. We are always dwelling on something that we need to do, a broken relationship, how we are going to manage paying the electricity bill as well as buying new school uniforms at the end of the month, not driving the car unnecessarily because gas costs more now-a-days. I am interested in the daily lives of Barbadian people, especially with what is going on in their minds..."
-- Sheena Rose

Sheena Rose will also participate in Alice Yard's first 24HRS residency. A 24-hour site-specific improvisational artwork instigated by Marlon Griffith will begin on Monday 1 June at 12.00 pm. The public is welcome to visit and engage with the process.

A Photographic Exploration of Religious Life in Trinidad

The Trinity of Trinidad
A Photographic Exploration of Religious Life in Trinidad
Photographs by: Erin Caner
click on the image to go to Erin's flickr site
Monday May 11, 2009
Opens at 7.00 PM
Alice Yard, 80 Roberts Street,Woodbrook, POS.
"I don't really know or understand what I'm looking at, being from a different culture, and I want to resist relying on tired stock imaging of what the Caribbean should look like, or a sort of 'orientalism' of Trinidad carnival, as an American outsider. It's complicated because so much of the culture, in my limited perception, appears to be mas or performance in itself. The culture is a performance. How does photography, capturing this performance-in-action, play into this? What's behind it all? I don't believe I've accomplished this investigative approach yet, but I would like to." - Read more here.
Co-sponsored by: Alice Yard & Trinity-in-Trinidad
Trinity at Alice Yard
Erin Caner, student at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, presents a series of photographs investigating the ways that religious life is performed and observed in Trinidadian society. Focusing on three religions in the country: Hinduism, Christianity, and the Shouter Baptists, the exhibition opens at 7.pm, and all are welcome!

Mother Mas and the Junk Jester

click on the image to go to Erin Caner's flickr site
A Performance by: Haben Abraham & Thea Button
Friday May 8th, 2009
Performance will start at 7:30 pm
Alice Yard, 80 Roberts Street, Woodbrook, POS
Co-sponsered by: Alice Yard & Trinity-in-Trinidad
Students of Trinity College in Hartford, CT, Button and Abraham have spent this past semester in Trinidad developing an experimental performance piece exploring society, location, and situation on Friday May 8th at 7:30. All are welcome! Feel free to check out their blog Trinity at Alice Yard for a sneak preview and to see how they got to where they are.

Also, on Monday night, look out for:
The Trinity of Trinidad
A Photographic Exploration of Religious Life in Trinidad
Photographs by: Erin Caner
Monday May 11, 2009
Opens at 7.00 PM
Alice Yard, 80 Roberts Street,Woodbrook, POS.
Co-sponsored by: Alice Yard & Trinity-in-Trinidad
Erin Caner, student at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, presents a series of photographs investigating the ways that religious life is performed and observed in Trinidadian society. Focusing on three religions in the country: Hinduism, Christianity, and the Shouter Baptists, the exhibition opens at 7.pm, and all are welcome!

Greta Mendez at Alice Yard

In collaboration with Alice Yard, Paul Kain and Robert Young, of the Cloth, London based Greta Mendez will perform a fragment of the her multi-media contemporary performance work, Ndulgence on Thursday April 9th at 8.pm.
Bring an extra eyebrow pencil and or lipstick.



Ndulgence uses images, text and calypsos, they collide and weave to get create a dramatic whole.
'Ndulgence tells a story of a Caribbean woman (Madam Glo) who has lived most of her life in Europe, struggling for her identity, amidst the daily bombardment of the “perfect image”…. The 'Ndulgence journey is not unique, it is an everyday story of the aging women and identity but it would be told in an original and powerful way. Most of us as migrant people struggle for our identity as we are always on the margins even when we are appear to operating within the society. When we return to our countries of origin we are also seen as outsiders. Migrant peoples clutch onto their traditions but some host countries favour assimilation on their terms. The need to be glo/bal is also forging a new manufactured identity.

".... there is a folk character called Mama Dlo/Dglo, Mama del’eau mother of the water. She sometimes takes the form of a beautiful woman and sits singing silent songs on still afternoons. She is really a houilla (wheel-a) anaconda; she makes cracking loud sounds with her tail. To escape Mama Dglo take off your left shoe, turn it upside down…..leave the scene walking backwards until you reach home and then there is Glo/bal"



"Everywhere we go there are images telling us what to wear, what to drive, what we should look like and so on"

Ndulgence highlights the external--social issues--and internal pressures pushing and pulling against each other in and around her. The need to find a voice in a society in which she is invisible, but how can she be obsessed with her image?
How can she be so indulgent when?

"Vagrants and destitutes on the street
Infants with simply nothing to eat
Is arming, disarming, alarming droughts and
famine
The overlords and a chosen few making the whole world blue"
-- Calypsonian Baron

Moyenne and Philip Nanton in performance

Friday 27 March, 2009, at 8.00 pm

This Friday, Alice Yard presents a double bill: the jazz ensemble Moyenne preceded by a performance of Island Voices by Philip Nanton.



"Wake Up Call", by Caroline "bops" Sardine.
Image courtesy Khalil Goodman and the artist.
Click here to see video sequence of Nanton discussing the work at Zemicon Gallery, Barbados

Philip Nanton's Island Voices is located on the imaginary Caribbean island state of St. Christopher and the Barracudas. It is a place where anything can happen and the wrong thing usually does. These dramatic monologues and dialogues, ranging in tone from broad humour to pathos, are introduced by the island state’s retired, rumbustuous Chief of Police, Emmanuel "Fish-head" De Freitas. Nanton's live stage reading includes visual responses by the Vincentian artist Caroline "bops" Sardine, and a short film, Shades, by the South African filmmaker Akin Omotosho.

Island Voices has previously been performed in Barbados, Jamaica, St. Vincent, and at the 2007 Miami International Book Fair.


Moyenne

Moyenne is a Caribbean jazz group, led by Chantal Esdelle, a graduate of Berklee College of Music and a MA student at York University. This pianist, composer, and arranger is joined by co-founder of the group Kevin Sobers on steel pans, Douglas Redon on bass, and Junior Noel on percussion. Together they create and perform original music that reflects their rich Caribbean heritage and their exploration of African-American jazz.

Moyenne has performed at the Havana International Jazz Festival, the Grenada Spice Jazz Festival, Pan Royale (now referred to as the Trinidad and Tobago Steel Pan and Jazz Festival), and throughout the Caribbean.

You can hear Moyenne’s music at www.myspace.com/chantalesdelle

The evening's performance starts at 8.00 pm. Admission is free and all are invited.

Wendell McShine & The Cloth

Designer Robert Young of The Cloth will open a temporary retail shop for the 2009 Carnival season at Alice Yard, featuring locally designed and made clothing. Mexico-based Trinidadian artist Wendell McShine will participate in the launch of The Cloth Here, with a performance piece at Alice Yard on Wednesday 18 February, 2009, from 5.00 pm. McShine will paint the Alice Yard exhibition space housing pieces from The Cloth's 2009 collection. For more information, contact Robert Young at 721-7616.