, in cooperation with the United States Embassy in Maputo, Office of Public Affairs, KUYAKANA, and The Foundation for Community Development, with support from the Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation and The Puffin Foundation. Graca Machel (Former First Lady of Mozambique and South Africa) is the Honorary Patron. The work was developed during a three-month residency in Mozambique that involved interviews, workshops, and recorded conversations with women in Xai-Xai, Chokwe, and Maputo. This research and creation was completed as a Cultural Envoy for the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs.

                 

 David Abilio, Director of CNCD, on A Sense of Place                                                        

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We trust in the creative process of Makeda and find it important to continue our collaboration. It is completely in accord with our principal statutes: Culture as education. Art in the middle of consciousness."

 A Sense of Place  in New York's Village Voice                                                                   

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"Thomas's eight magnificent performers dug in and delivered, with breathtaking dignity, gestures you could feel in your gut and heavenly dancing you wanted to watch forever. Inspired by interviews with 40 Mozambican women living with HIV/AIDS, Thomas's dance-video project gives urgent testimony for women who dare not speak publicly, touching on the male-female schism compounding this health crisis."

 Eva Yaa Asantewaa on A Sense of Place                                                                            

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"A Sense of Place achieves the rare successful blending of humanistic feeling and meaning with sophisticated visual style.  The movement seamlessly combines African and modern influences...Clearly Thomas learned many discomforting truths from the women she interviewed for her original video. However, with the sure touch of a poet, she has distilled this into just enough telling words, just enough flashes of video imagery--all of these appearing only to fade away-- to create a balanced atmosphere".