PRIMARY MEDIUM
DANCE/CHOREOGRAPHY

SECONDARY MEDIUM
VISUAL ART (PASTEL/PEN & INK DRAWINGS)
 

When did you start dancing? And why did you keep up with it?
I started training when I was 4 but I like to say I started dancing before I was born because my mum danced with me 3 days before going into labour. 

Mum was due with me on the 14th of July, she had her show on the 4th and at the end of the show the tutors always come onstage to dance in the finale which is to “Shout” isley brothers. So obviously there is a lot of jumping and bouncing going on and some people in the audience were apparently worried about her water breaking. Long story short, I came 3 days after that and I am convinced that her doing that number was the reason I was born a week early. 

Honestly I’m not fully sure why I continued dancing. I was being alienated and bullied by my society for doing it and I wasn’t particularly good at it either. A Lot of people who don’t understand my relationship with my mum would say that she forced me into it. She was actually very good at not pushing me into a career in dance (but she was obviously still supportive). Also yes i did get good enough that by 18 you could see i had something going for me lol. 

I will say that i was always addicted to performing and becoming a different character on stage. Maybe i was more comfortable being something else rather than a closeted gay boy with a bad sense of fashion. Stage presence was the one thing i always had going for me. I think all of this also came from being exposed to GOOD cirque du soleil shows at very young. I saw Alegria live in Toronto when i was 4, and we had dvd’s of that show and Varekai which in my opinion are still 2 of their better touring show. I would watch them a concerning amount of times.

When did you start drawing/exploring visual arts?
2 answers to this. I started drawing seriously at 16 when I was doing CXC art ( Caribbean Examination Council you uneducated swine). But in Barbados and the Caribbean for the most part we mostly stay within the realm of realism. I’m not 100% sure why, i’ve always assumed that it’s because historically you make more money selling tourists pictures of palm trees and chattel houses as opposed to abstract art (traditional Barbadian houses you uneducated swine) (and yes i’m aware chattel is an old word for property or slave but we still use it and i don’t know why #BajanHistoryIsWild).

I started exploring art at the start of covid. At the time I had patellar tendonitis in both knees and I was trying to find ways of expressing myself outside dance while I rested. That’s when i started to realise i took no joy in trying to perfectly replicate on paper, a pot of flowers in front of me… that’s what cameras are for. It’s much more interesting to take inspiration from shapes, colour and negative space and twist it around to make something that can have many interpretations.

Why do you use pastel/pen over other mediums?

I was introduced to pastel through my art teacher but i liked it more than acrylic which btw is the main art medium in Barbados. It gave me more control of my strokes and images than a brush full of horse hair. I now use pen half out of convenience and half because i’m more concerned with shape than colour. When it comes to dance, we focus a lot on the shape and movement ( yes emotion too but one can’t exist without the other) . Colour is very rarely brought into the picture in the creation process. If it is it’ll be with costumes and lighting. I think that is why my brain takes more immediate interest in the lines and shapes i draw.