NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

For In­di­an clas­si­cal dancer Sádé Budhlall, it’s im­por­tant that cre­ative ex­pres­sion is fused with open mind­ed­ness, prop­er re­search and mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion for its full essence to be felt.

As she nears the end of her mas­ter’s de­gree in dance: par­tic­i­pa­tion, com­mu­ni­ties, ac­tivism at the Lon­don Con­tem­po­rary Dance School, she is show­cas­ing Dis­obe­di­ent Bod­ies—a project that ex­plores Afro-In­do re­la­tion­al pol­i­tics through the odis­si and moko jumbie tra­di­tions.

Budhlall, a San Juan na­tive, has been an odis­si dancer for the past 13 years. Her work sits at the in­ter­sec­tion of dance pol­i­tics, em­bod­ied re­search and post­colo­nial the­o­ry.

She told WE she be­lieves in us­ing move­ment to in­ter­vene in ques­tions of pow­er, dis­ci­pline and col­lec­tive agency.

Af­ter six months of “ethno­graph­ic re­search” with three ma­jor moko jumbie com­mu­ni­ties in T&T—Jaiso Mokos, Fu­ture Jumbies and Lit­tle Jabs—the glob­al south schol­ar was able to un­veil her prac­tice-as-re­search work.

She worked close­ly with moko prac­ti­tion­er Adri­an Young, who is al­so known as The Gold­en Moko and Dad­dy Jumbie. He leads Fu­ture Jumbies based in Tar­o­dale and has close to three decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the per­form­ing arts.

The two said their cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion grew through sus­tained ex­change and trust as they nav­i­gat­ed each oth­er’s art­form.

They prac­tised im­pro­vi­sa­tion, move­ment ex­change and re­flec­tion, among oth­er cre­ative ex­er­cis­es, “al­low­ing both the move­ment ma­te­r­i­al and the nar­ra­tive world of the project to emerge through the body.”

On May 30—In­di­an Ar­rival Day—she host­ed a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry in­stal­la­tion and film screen­ing, which in­clud­ed a col­lec­tive dis­cus­sion, in Bel­mont, in part­ner­ship with Al­ice Yard, North Eleven, SO­LA, Fu­ture Jumbies, 56 En­ter­tain­ment and 1000 Mokos.

At­ten­dees were able to view and in­ter­act with bits of the lit­tle pieces that brought the project to­geth­er, and even had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to an­swer some ques­tions.

It al­so fea­tured a short dance film ti­tled Dougla, which was set with­in a spec­u­la­tive plan­ta­tion-era. It fol­lows Budhlall, the In­di­an clas­si­cal dancer, and Young, the moko jumbie.

They share their unique move­ments in hopes that the oth­er is able to con­nect in some way. Budhlall de­scribed it as a search for con­nec­tion across un­fa­mil­iar move­ment worlds.

“The film brings odis­si and moko jumbie in­to chore­o­graph­ic re­la­tion—ask­ing what be­comes pos­si­ble when two move­ment lin­eages, shaped by dif­fer­ent but en­tan­gled his­to­ries, meet through the body.”

The au­di­ence cheered loud­ly af­ter the film con­clud­ed with Free­town Col­lec­tive’s 2026 re­lease Shake Up.

Just like the film, the song speaks to the merg­ing of two dif­fer­ent cul­tures to cre­ate some­thing amaz­ing. Lead singer Muham­mad Muwak­il opens with, “Vashti came across the wa­ter, Kwame from the sis­ter isle. Eyes like ru­by blaz­ing fire, de­cid­ed to stay a while. Now who would have thought these lovers could ever de­fy the times? Africa son, In­dia daugh­ter, this is our sto­ry.”

Budhlall said that at the film’s core lies an in­quiry in­to how his­to­ries shaped by slav­ery and in­den­ture­ship “con­tin­ue to live through the body and through the on­go­ing labour of re­la­tion.”

She con­tin­ued, “Rather than ap­proach­ing these his­to­ries on­ly through dis­course alone, Dis­obe­di­ent Bod­ies asks how they might be felt, ne­go­ti­at­ed, and made vis­i­ble in the body and through move­ment.”

It was co-di­rect­ed by her hus­band Jer­el Ram­sey, while Re­nal­do Mata­moro was di­rec­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy and Aaron Pe­ters did sound de­sign.

She told the au­di­ence, “I want­ed it to feel more Caribbean, even though my art­form is one that is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the high­est clas­si­cal ideals of In­dia.”

She said that came with its own pol­i­tics as that style of dance has many strict rules, in­clud­ing where you can dance and who you can dance with. A fel­low In­di­an clas­si­cal dancer from the au­di­ence agreed and said she was over­joyed that Budhlall was so coura­geous and in­no­v­a­tive to push for this project.

“Putting In­di­an clas­si­cal dance in con­ver­sa­tion with Car­ni­val tra­di­tions has been a huge man­date of mine,” she added.

There are some who still see moko jumbies as mere­ly stilt walk­ers. But they are so much more. Asked by WE to ex­plain what be­ing a moko is all about, in his opin­ion, Young em­pha­sised its role in pro­tect­ing vil­lages and sa­cred spaces.

“It’s al­so about see­ing things be­fore they hap­pen,” he said.

And it was ex­act­ly this he em­bod­ied in his role in the film.

He al­so men­tioned that the way he plays the moko in­cludes masks cov­er­ing his face en­tire­ly be­cause “it gives me more free­dom to ex­press my­self.”

He, too, said it was a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, es­pe­cial­ly try­ing to keep up with the very swift foot move­ment for Budhlall’s style of dance.

Budhlall added that the ex­pe­ri­ence made her fur­ther pon­der on tru­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with com­mu­ni­ties rather than just “tak­ing some­thing” from them.

“So of­ten we bring in cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers to ful­fil some­body else’s idea, whether it’s a vi­su­al project or as an en­ter­tain­ment prop. But what has felt dif­fer­ent in this project is that while I ini­ti­at­ed the work, the work changed through Adri­an’s pres­ence, his knowl­edge, ideas, in­stincts, his re­fusals and his unique way of un­der­stand­ing moko prac­tice.”

She stressed that com­mu­ni­ty-based prac­tice is al­so about rep­re­sent­ing oth­ers and build­ing process­es where their ways ac­tive­ly shape the evo­lu­tion of the work it­self.

She fur­ther ex­plained, “Go­ing through re­la­tion­al phas­es of trust, reci­procity, dis­com­fort, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and au­thor­ship can be the very ma­te­ri­als through which the work gets made. It can change how we think about co-mak­ing, ethnog­ra­phy or com­mu­ni­ty-based work so that cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers are not just back­drops for art, but are part of the ac­tu­al trans­for­ma­tion of the art be­ing made.”

She not­ed that the project shar­ing hap­pened at a mo­ment where T&T “is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing re­al height­ened ten­sion and ques­tions around racial ten­sions, racism, polic­ing and in­jus­tice,” which made it even more pow­er­ful as a state­ment.

She and Young jok­ing­ly dubbed their col­lab­o­ra­tion a new dance style called In­di­an clas­si­cal moko. But as their laugh­ter, as well as the au­di­ence’s, fad­ed, many ex­pressed their de­sire for more of these projects in the fu­ture.

Those in­ter­est­ed in screen­ing the short film can make a re­quest at sade­budhlall.com/dougla.