Dance like Douen

Abstract This chapter explores the radical, Black feminist performance praxis within Trinidad Carnival, grounded in the phrase “Dance like Douen.” Through the works of Adeola Dewis, Jamie Philbert, and Adele Todd, it examines how masquerade and movement serve as modes of resistance, memory, and healing rooted in ancestral knowledge and Afro-diasporic traditions. The chapter details how Kalinda, Mas, and folklore characters like the Douen are reimagined through the bodies and practices of these women, who use their art to confront colonial erasure, gendered violence, and systemic silencing. It asserts Carnival as a living ritual, feminist architecture, and spiritual technology that transforms public performance into acts of survival, defiance, and futurity. Finally, the chapter presents Carnival as a sacred portal where to dance is to remember, to resist, and to reimagine freedom.