Pinelands Creative Workshop (PCW), which is a Community Based Organization, was formed on February 28th 1978. The Organization’s foundation is rooted in culture expressed through psycho-social theatre and afro-caribbean dance, which are used to provide awareness of the issues of the day and to reaffirm the commitment to cultural preservation.
Despite its commitment to the other pillars of the organisation which focuses on social and economic development, over the last 45 years the cultural arm of the Pinelands Creative Workshop, has maintained a strong commitment to Afro/Caribbean Folk which they have showcased both on regionally and internationally stages, touring extensively to countries such as: Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Martinique, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Germany, Canada, Mexico, USA.
This award winning and iconic organisation, has made their presence felt on the local stage as well capturing no fewer than seventy (70) awards over the years. In their National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA) presentation in 2011 the group won Gold for their piece entitled “Keeping the Ship Afloat”, choreographed by Shelly Durant- Forde. They returned in 2015 and 2016 to capture Gold with the pieces entitled “Afro Ship” and “The Limbo” also choreographed by Mrs. Durant-Forde. Still at home, PCW also headlined the notable Barbadian Dinner Show “1627 And All That”. Internationally, PCW participated in the Caribbean Cultural Festival in Mexico in 1995 and 1996, where they won two outstanding awards – best performance and best group, voted by the Mexican Press.
The repertoire of the Organisation is extensive. Within the portfolio, the organisation has secured varied traditional dance forms namely gig, heel and toe, kalinda, bongo, limbo, sticklick, bele, our very own landship/maypole to name a few. PCW has continued to creative extend itself to be able to present Nigger Yard, Teacher Teacher, Wine of Astonishment, Mirror Image, Out of Nazareth, Dan is the Man in the Van, When Night Turns to Day – some of the most riveting and thought provoking multi media dramatic presentations.
The Organisation has maintained a commitment to authenticity through knowledge sharing and research. Through its Cultural Fusion – which is a collective of Caribbean grassroot performing arts groups and individuals – the PCW has brought various traditional artforms to Barbados and onto to local, regional and international stages. The research and development continue to be a critical component of the organisation allowing for cultural retention, safeguarding and inter-generational knowledge sharing. To date, the organisation has produced “The Heartbeat of a People – The Landship – An Anthology of its Music” and complimentary documentary “De Engine and the Ship”; Keeping the Folk Alive- Volume 1 and 2 – educational video and teaching manual; “Cultural Heritage Identification and Preservation in Barbados, Grenada, and Tobago” and “Cultural Routes – Pathways to Cultural Expression”. Technology now plays a critical part in the safeguarding and knowledge sharing efforts, affording improved access to students, practitioners, researcher and those with a general interest, using the online Cultural Fusion Online Platform.
(HTCG), is a registered non-profit (#35 0f 1994, Companies Act of Grenada), membership based performing arts organization that has been operating in Grenada since November 1989.
We have developed our own unique niche in the Caribbean’s performing arts community for socially conscious theatre productions that have used theatre to promote education, sometimes using comedy to ease the heavy content being dramatized; advance cultural understanding; foster psychological recovery in the wake of a major natural disaster (Hurricane Ivan); facilitate Caribbean integration (through cultural exchanges with groups from Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines); and raised the nation’s awareness of HIV/AIDS, child sexual abuse, substance abuse, the effects of alcohol consumption on adolescent health and environmental protection issues.
In keeping with its mission “to be an instrument for creativity and a medium for entertainment, education and social development in Grenada.”, HTCG has been trained in the education entertainment (edutainment) methodology to be used as community development communication tool; this training methodology aims at capturing people’s attention, actively involving them in an experience; which means involving their emotions, not just their intellect; allowing their attitudes to be influenced in a particular direction; hopefully resulting in positive behavior change.
The Tivoli Drummers came into existence in the year 1995. It is a community-based organization aimed at promoting the indigenous culture and heritage of Grenada through education and the performing arts.
The group has seventeen senior members and approximately eighteen children training at the two junior groups.
Malick Folk Performing Company CMT was founded in 1979 by Mr. Norvan Fullerton.
It is Trinidad and Tobago’s most renowned folk performing company. It has distinguished itself as the only folk performing group which has won the national premier folk competition, the Prime Minister’s Best Village Trophy Competition, a record thirteen (13) times. They have produced two winners of Miss La Reine Rive, the Queen category of the Best Village competition.
In 2004 Malick Folk Performing Company received a National Award, the Chaconia Medal Silver, for its outstanding achievements and its long, dedicated and meritorious contribution to the development and promotion of the culture of Trinidad and Tobago.
Other awards include the Keys to Dade County in Miami, NAPA Appreciation Award for Best Village and A Diploma from Municipal Governor of the town of Felipe Puerto Carrillo, Mexico.
Malick performs throughout the year. They have toured extensively and have represented Trinidad and Tobago at numerous cultural festivals locally, regionally and internationally. They have performed in Rome and Germany in Europe, China and Japan in Asia, Toronto, Winnipeg and Branford in Canada, Miami, Seattle, New Orleans at the Jazz Festival, Connecticut and Brooklyn in the United States. They also performed in Mexico with Skiffle Steel Orchestra, in Brazil, Venezuela, French Guiana, Surinam and Guyana in South America and throughout the Caribbean. They received standing ovations and rave reviews and left an indelible mark in the memories of their audiences.
As part of their thrust for Caribbean unity through culture, Malick Folk Performing Company twinned with Pinelands Creative Workshop of Barbados in 1988. They also twinned with Shiv Shakti Dance Company of Trinidad in 1993.
The Junior Company, which came into being in 1991, has represented Trinidad and Tobago at Children’s Cultural Festivals in Cuba and Aruba and has performed in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Malick Folk Performing Company has hosted foreign performing companies – OrigiNation Cultural Arts Centre of Boston, Uphondo Lwe Afrika of South Africa, Akademiduka of Martinique and their twinned group, Pinelands Creative Workshop from Barbados.
Malick remains committed to its main objective of preserving the indigenous culture of Trinidad and Tobago and promoting it locally, regionally and internationally.
More information coming soon
Lela Aisha Jones (LAJ) conjures contemporary cultural memoirs that lusciously archive and blur traditional continuums of embodied existence to multiply the infinite vibrations of blackness. Her work intertwines dance, movement, memories, media, soundscapes, lyricism, oration, text, vocals, symbolism, sensorial dynamics, and alternate realities of black Atlantic lifeways. LAJ’s critical artistry is fertilized by homegrown, southern vibes, conscious embodiment, and cultivation of downhome diasporic nomadic blackness. Her artistic ventures are an ode to being with the body as an intimate testimonial intermediary, essential for conjuring continual renewal and revival.
LAJ is the founder/director of FlyGround, her artistic and creative home from 2009-2021 with generous support from Philadelphia’s Community Education Center (Terri Shockley) and the Headlong Incubated Artist Program (Amy Smith, David Brick). A movement performance artist, community-based curator/organizer, interdisciplinary collaborator, and embodied researcher, her elegantly daring offerings have earned LAJ a New York Dance and Performance | Bessie nomination, Leeway Transformation Award, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Her modes of facilitation and making are encapsulated in her developing methods of Mining Witnessing Archiving, Embodied Interviews, and Revival Ride Conjure. She is currently a freelance maker and the Associate Artistic Director of Brownbody, a St. Paul Minnesota-based organization that manifests embodied blackness on ice and on stage.
Some of her most recent artistic engagements and projects include: Infinite Slow Drive | Obsidians in the Wild (Conceptualist Choreographer 2026) commissioned for Brownbody; feature film and virtual ceremony titled Revivals of Blackness (Co-Artistic Director 2021) commissioned by World Cafe Live; Olney Embrace Project Revival Walks (Conceptualist Choreographer 2020/2021) commissioned by Olney Culture Lab; Modupue | Ibaye: The Yoruba Performance Project commissioned by Intercultural Journeys and supported by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage (Co-Artistic Director 2017-2019) and Contemporary African American Museum Los Angeles in the Bahia Reverb Project (Media Exhibition 2023); commissioned work titled we all gon’ die into revivals for Red Clay Dance in Chicago, IL (Conceptualist, Choreographer 2021); commissioned work titled Grounds that Shout…and others merely shaking (Conceptualist Choreographer 2019) for Philadelphia Contemporary | Sacred Spaces and curated by Reggie Wilson; commissioned work titled Plight Release and the Diasporic Body: (Conceptualist Choreographer 2019) for the African American Museum of Philadelphia presented by James Claiborne and Temple University’s Reflection : Response curated by Merion Soto; Plight Release and the Diasporic Body: Jesus and Egun (Conceptualist Choreographer 2017) curated by Cynthia Oliver and commissioned by Gibney Dance.
LAJ’s intricately archived and most essential professional experiences over her career have been in performance, practice, and guidance with nia love, Margo Blake, Akosua Graham, Dr. Nzinga Metzger, Christal Brown | Inspirit, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and the Urban Bush Women family, Barak Ade Sole, Moustapha Bangoura, Sulley Imoro, Anssumane Silla, Ronald K. Brown, Dandha Da Hora, Jelon Viera, Ediluesa Santos, Iya Oyin Hardy, and Mama Dorothy Wilkie. Currently as a performer LAJ is dedicated to the ongoing iterations of undercurrents by nia love (2019-present) and The Re-Emancipation of Social Dance, led by Raja Feather, Yolanda Wisher, and with support from Intercultural Journeys and Pew Center for Arts and Heritage (2024).
From 2005-2020 a primary part of her work was as a teaching artist, arts educator, and curriculum consultant throughout the northeast U.S. in public and private sectors of education. Her collaborations as a rostered educator were primarily based in New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia with Young Audiences, Live Connections/World Café Live, and Intercultural Journeys. She has also taught and performed internationally at Pinelands Creative Workshop | National Cultural Foundation in Barbados, University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria and Ecole Des Sables, Toubab Dialow, Senegal. As a change agent, LAJ has been a presenter, facilitator, and artistic director for projects with Enhancing Clinical Legal Education in Europe (ENCLE) and the International University of Turin (2023) — conference panel on storytelling through arts for the enhancement of refugee and asylum applications in Italy; Mothers in Charge and the National Homicide Justice Alliance in Philadelphia—co-created a performance based social action for the 2017 Philadelphia Puerto Rican Parade with members who have lost children to violence; Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia’s 2018 Symposium—performance and participatory commissioned work on centering the power of those they support while recognizing their challenges as a way to shift equity potentials of access and prosperity; The Requisite Movers Philadelphia (Co-Director 2010-2015) to support African descendant black women choreographers in making and presenting their work; Dancing for Justice Philadelphia (Lead Organizer 2014/2015)—a racial justice artist and community network formed during critical rise of the Black Lives Matter movement that provided Undoing Racism Training with the People’s Institute of Survival and Beyond for Philadelphia artists, presenters, and educators and facilitated convening marches and workshops to help community members locate their activism and comrades in their contributions to racial justice and to cease racial violence.
LAJ earned a B.S. at University of Florida, an M.F.A. at Florida State University, a Ph.D. at Texas Woman’s University, and is the Director of Dance at Bryn Mawr College. LAJ continuously serves the fields of dance and diasporic studies through her work as a former steering committee member and current ambassador for the Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving (CDSM). She was born and raised in the wonderful Tallahassee (a Muskogee word for old fields), Florida and is proudly based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To her family, gratitude everlasting, ase. To her ancestors, ibaye.
