Jelaa’s destiny with dance

Performing Spanish, French and African influenced dances, Jelaa showed her skills in the various styles as she led a group of young women of the Arawak Dance Company at the San Fernando Art Council’s Indian Arrival Day celebrations.

A student of Pleasantville Senior Comprehensive School, Jelaa is pursuing science subjects. She noted that while dance takes up most of her time she is planning to graduate with distinctions in her academics subjects.

“In order to be well respected in society I want to get my subjects and continue pursuing my college education for as long as I could,” she said. However, as far as her dancing goes she knows it is a calling from God because everything she does leads her back to dance.

Unlike most young women out there, Jelaa lost her father at age six and as a result she was always withdrawn until she found a place on stage. Her mother, Gemma Francis said taking young Jelaa to dance classes was one of the best things she did for her daughter.

“She was extremely close to her father and even at that young age she was always asking for him and asking about him and I needed to get her involved in something that will steal her mind and heart. Dance did the trick,” Francis admits.

Although it is ten years since she lost her father, Jelaa often remembers him and talks about him with her mom. She believes that her father (who died of cancer), is looking down on her from the heavens and helping her along the way.

“Some days are very sad. I feel left alone without my father but I think I have become a stronger individual in life because of all that has happened,” she said.

As a member of the Inter-Cultural Organisation of the Performing Arts of TT (ICOPATT), young Jelaa is called upon by the Ministry of Education to go to various schools in South Trinidad to participate in workshops that deal with crime and HIV/AIDS. Supervisors use Jelaa as an example of a young woman who is focused and heading for success. One of the lines that Jelaa remembers clearly being used is “channelling her energy to do something that is positive and beautiful.”

“I was attracted to dance cause I just love to move to music but it is only now that I am realising how much the art has done for me,” she said. She remembers one occasion where the boys from the South school met for a workshop on HIV/AIDS. “They were just not talking. They were just out of it totally. I started to talk about the subject and pretty soon the boys started giving their opinion and I realised how much my contribution had done to help the workshop,” she said. It was just a matter of relating to people of the same age bracket, she added.

Jelaa wants to follow in the footsteps of Hollywood actress and choreographer, Debbie Allen. Jelaa sang the lines of the theme song of the television serious Fame which starred Allen: “Fame I want to live forever. I want to learn how to fly.” Those words describe what she is thinking.

After school Jelaa hurries home freshens up and gets into her dancing gear for rehearsals with choreographer Eric Butler. The Arawak dancers are preparing for a tour in Asia in the future and Jelaa has found her place among the best dancers chosen to represent TT. She agrees that having such a major assignment really helps to motivate her in the right direction. She spends up to six hours a day rehearsing her dance. This is translated into what can be termed “excellent stage movements.”

She urges other young women to be true to themselves and reach for a higher goal that can make them someone special in this world.

Founder of the Arawak Dance Company, Torrence Mohammed believes Jelaa has a bright future. “She has the determination and courage to conquer the odds and get to the top. I believe with the right guidance this young woman will become a shining star of tomorrow,” he said.