| Dancer/Choreographer/Artistic Director, MAKEDA THOMAS creates new
dance works through collaboration with artists around the world. Makeda
Thomas is from Trinidad & Tobago and has presented work at HARLEM
Stage/Aaron Davis Hall, Dance Theater Workshop, and Symphony Space in
New York City, Brooklyn Academy of Music, BRIC Arts|Media|Brooklyn, the
Chicago Women's Performance Arts Festival, Maputo's Teatro Africa, Port
of Spain's Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Queen's Hall, Zimbabwe's 7 Arts
Centre, Seattle's Broadway Performance Hall, Southern Theater in
Minneapolis, Teatro de la Ciudad in Mexico, and as a Cultural Envoy for
the U.S. Department of State. Her choreography has been commissioned by
the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, 651 ARTS Black Dance:
Tradition & Transformation and received awards from Mid-Atlantic
Arts Foundation, the United States Embassy, Puffin Foundation, NYS
Council on the Arts, Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Arts
International, Yellowfox, and the National AIDS Council of Moçambique.
In 2004, during its 25th Anniversary season, she was named Resident
Choreographer of Companhia Nacional De Canto e Dança. Graça Machel
(Former First Lady of South Africa and Moçambique) served as the
Honorary Patron of her internationally acclaimed work, A Sense of
Place (2005), on which she presented at the 1st Biennale Performing Africa/Visualizing Africa! In 2007, Thomas
was a featured choreographer in This Woman’s Work: Choreographic
Development Project Representing Women of Color - joining Camille A.
Brown, Bridget Moore, Shani Collins, Princess Mhoon Cooper, Francine
Ott, & Ursula Payne. In 2008,as Artistic Advisor, Thomas remounted "FIN" by contemporary African dance choreographer
Augusto Cuvilas. The work went on to performances at The Baltoppen in
Copenhagen, Teatro Africa and Centre Culturel Franco Mozambicain in
Maputo, and Zimbabwe's Tetrad Reps Theatre.
Makeda Thomas has collaborated on films with Finnish cinematographer, Panu
Kari, Trinidadian multi-media artist, Elspeth Duncan and German
photographer, Stefan Falke. Her film work has been shown at the
National Gallery of Zimbabwe, T&T Moves Film Festival, MadLab's
First International Film Festival, the 41st Congress on Research in
Dance "Dance Studies & Global Feminisms", and BRIC as part of
Choreographic Sketches II.
Thomas has been a Visiting Artist at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (where her work FreshWater was embedded into "Black
Matters: Introduction to Black Studies"), Yale University, University
of Minnesota (as a Cowles Visiting Guest Artist and part of Continuously
Rich: Black Women in Cultural Production), Long Island University,
Hofstra University, Hollins University, Florida Memorial University,
University of the West Indies, and University of Hawaii. Thomas has
conducted independent projects and research in South Africa, Argentina,
The Netherlands and taught at American Dance Festival, The Dalton
School, Arts in Education Institute of Western NY, and NYC Dept. of
Education. In 2010, she developed The Dance & Performance Institute -
an international community of dance and performance artists, a forum
for exchange, and a series of programs on contemporary dance and
performance.
As a dancer, Makeda Thomas performed internationally in the companies of
Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, URBAN BUSH WOMEN, and Rennie Harris/
Puremovement in Facing Mekka, said by the Los Angeles Times to be
"arguably the greatest tribute to black womanhood since Alvin Ailey’s
“Cry.” Thomas has also performed as a guest artist with Shani
Collins/ETERNAL WORKS, Robin Becker Dance, Lula Washington Dance
Theater, and Stephen Koplowitz. She began her study in Brooklyn, New
York with Michael Goring and Eleo Pomare, continuing on scholarship at
the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, The Paul Taylor School
and Hofstra University where she earned a B.A. in Dance and English. She
also holds an MFA in Dance from Hollins University. Thomas continues to
create and perform internationally, while living in New York City &
Port of Spain.
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