She Paradise: Dangerous Dancing in Trinidad
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B
A young woman seeks a career in show business and finds that success comes wrapped in exploitation.
That’s not exactly a new story, though not usually told with as much gusto as in She Paradise, a drama about an aspiring soca dancer, Sparkle (Odessa Nestor) who lives in poverty in the Trinidad and Tobago capital of Port of Spain.
A regal-looking but shy 17-year-old, Sparkle has finished high school and, for unclear reasons, lives with her grandfather Papa (Michael Cherrie), a mostly retired goldsmith who hasn’t made a sale in months. When Sparkle goes to the market to buy food for their dinner, she saves money by picking up produce that has fallen on the ground.
During one of her shopping trips, she sees a trio of soca dancers — Diamond, Shan, and Mica — performing and recruiting aspiring dancers for the financially lucrative carnival season. The women’s movements are acrobatic, confidently sexual, and bursting with bold attitude.
Sparkle sees an opportunity for fun and financial survival. Shortly after, she dips into her sparse supply of make-up and heads out for the evening for an audition while her grandfather watches suspiciously.
The liveliest scenes in She Paradise are the dance sequences, bum-shaking routines that probably qualify as not safe for viewing at work. But first-time feature director Maya Cozier — a former dancer and choreographer — also emphasizes that this is work, requiring sweat, muscle, and discipline as well as sensuality.
A few minutes into Sparkle’s audition, the imperious dance crew captain Diamond (Kimberly Crichton) glares at the awkward young woman and tells her to go back home. But dancer Mica (Chelsey Rampersad), whose interest might be more than sisterly, takes the newcomer aside and encourages her to try again.
Sparkle finds a way to win her way into the group’s favour by offering them gold chains filched from her grandfather. Soon, she starts wearing the same skimpy outfits and more expensive make-up to work the party circuit and make some cash.
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Her disgusted Papa views soca dancing as equivalent to sex work, with “girls gyrating with no clothes on.” But the money is good and Sparkle revels in her new clothes and company of the other, more worldly women. Soon, Diamond insists the newbie moves into her apartment, the better to show up to gigs on time, rehearse, and recover from the nightly hangovers.
Sparkle’s possible big break comes when a predatory singer/producer Skinny (Kern Mollineau) eyes the “fresh” talent as a back-up dancer for his new video shoot. The novice Sparkle is flattered by the celebrity attention, convinced, for the first time in her life, that she must be something special.
Diamond, who knows the game, insists that Sparkle comes with the whole dance crew or no deal. Though intermittently protective of her new dancer, Diamond is also ready to sacrifice Sparkle’s safety for her own profit.
She Paradise, which runs a brief 71 minutes, is raw in more than one sense. The characters are thinly developed, and the dance sequences, as robust as they are, could be more dynamically shot.
On the plus side, Nestor — with her watchful quiet manner — is persuasive as a young woman awkwardly finding her way, and the other women are forceful presence. The Trinidadian patois is lively (the title could be translated as “her paradise”) and the handful of street scenes, by day and night, catch a bustling social milieu where everyone knows everyone else’s business.
Unlike the dozens of other dance movies out there, She Paradise is not simple up-from-the-streets story. In the last third, the film takes a traumatic turn before Sparkle finds her defiant centre.
Director Cozier, who previously developed the story for a short film, has said she was motivated by the Caribbean version of the #MeToo movement, known as #lifeinleggings, a campaign aimed at dispelling the myth that women are harassed or assaulted because of the way they dress.
While the setting is Trinidadian, the film is built around the contradiction of young women who are excited to express themselves artistically and sexually but discover that attention draws shame and violence.
She Paradise. Directed by Maya Cozier. Written by Maya Cozier and Melina Brown. Starring Onessa Nestor, Kimberly Crichton, Chelsey Rampersad, Denisia Latchman, Kern Mollineau, and Michael Cherrie. Available on VOD and digital November 19.