ArtistStatement
Spiral and spirit have the same root sound, and as
someone fascinated by language, I find myself in the
shape of following both their impetuses in my work as an
artist. Performing spoken word poetry at 15 years old,
illegally at a gay bar on school nights in Port of Spain, I
quickly cleaved to a community of rabble-rousers and
organizers there.
This offered me the space to supportively etch my way
forward by enhancing my craft and allowing the work to
teach me what it wanted to do in the world. By then I was
already discovering the urgency to articulate freedom,
justice and autonomy as an indigenous Caribbean
woman, maneuvering my countless intersections and the
power structures trying to get in the way of my own
fulfillment and the liberation of my people.
I have used poetry, theatre and music to connect women
with their sovereignty through storytelling. I attune to
language at the vibrational level to serve communities of
youth, through guiding the exploration of their
imagination and affirming their own voice and process.
The spiral now places me with migrant girls, around the
same age I was when I started performing, allowing them
even braver space to shape their world through words. ArtistBio
To write the Caribbean future is to declare it will continue
to exist.

Determined to celebrate the West Indian now, while
designing our shared survival of the future, Arielle John
approaches poetry, music and theatre performance as
medicine for Atlantic peoples, their resilient cultures, and
the land (and sea) they occupy. The millennial's devotion
to social change moves beyond the possibilities of the
performing arts into community-building, eco-theology
and decolonization as a lifestyle, as she works within the
Caribbean and its diaspora, sharing and gathering tools
that have supported their dynamic evolution over time.
Birther of Blue Oracle Healing Arts, Arielle builds
movement with a number of nonprofit organizations in her
native Trinidad & Tobago, including Girl Be Heard TT, the
Sacred Spirit Sisterhood and BE Entertainment. Recent
projects by the Goldsmiths College alumna include
scholarly research on divine femininity in the Trinidad
Carnival (2017), the debut of her one-woman show ‘Bout
Blue’ (2018), and the publication of her second poetry
chapbook ‘Containing in Itself All Sweetness’ (2019).
Currently building another one woman show through a
generous Artist Residency with Brown University for black
people fed up with capitalism (2022), she continues her
work virtually as an arts educator and spiritual consultant.