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THE INSTITUTE...
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... is an international community of dance and performance artists, a forum for exchange and a series of programs on traditional and contemporary dance and performance in the Caribbean. The Institute offers
artists residencies in contemporary
and traditional dance and performance studies in Trinidad & Tobago
in
an open, comfortable environment with many opportunities for
interaction, exchange and learning. The goal of the residency is to provide a space
where professional dance artists from the Caribbean
can engage in creation, conversation and performance with dance and
performing artists from around the world. |
............................................................ CONTACT USEMAIL:institute@makedathomas.org ............................................................
| ABOUT THE SALON SERIES | About
the Salon Series : An
evening of dinner with a focus on local ingredients and international,
interdisciplinary conversation. Serves as a forum for open and
in-depth discourse on contemporary issues in dance and performance. The
salon is organized around specific themes around the artist, methods,
and pedagogies of contemporary dance and performance in the Caribbean.
Open to Artists in Residence and Invited Guests. |
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| | PERFORMANCES, WORKSHOPS & EVENTS UPCOMING EVENTS!
Kshoy!/Decay Workshop & PERFORMANCE with Ananya Dance
Theatre
Kshoy!/Decay
looks
at violence against global communities of women of color
through the paradigms of mud (land), gold, oil, and water. Monday, 26 July
at 1pm. The Dance Studio at the Academy for the Performing Arts.
Weaving through movement and
words, we will create a story circle. In this circle, we will work
collectively to invoke histories, some untold and some told, and imagine
a narrative of how violence figures in our lives. One of the main goals
of this workshop is to name as violent the experiences that are violent
but pass as part of life activities because we have come to accept them
as such. Another goal is to recognize, through movement, the multiple
impacts of such silencings, oppressions, that we have come to name as
violence. 120 minutes. Contemporary
Indian Dance: Exploring a Feminine, Feminist Vocabulary Master
class with Ananya Chatterjea. Monday,
26 July at 11am. The Dance Studio at the Academy for the Performing
Arts.
This is a
relatively advanced level technique class based on the Odissi classical
style of Indian dance, the martial movement form Chhau, and Iyengar
style yoga. These forms are deconstructed and then extended to create a
contemporary South Asian movement/dance form. We will focus on the
exploration of several principles: Articulation of the spine, Footwork
and rhythmic floor patterns, Hip flexion and torso movement, Breath
work. Please arrive dressed in fitting clothes, preferably shorts, so I
can see your knees. We will dance barefeet, and shoes will not be
allowed in class. I will touch students and work with them closely on
issues of alignment. 90 minutes.
Interrogating
Diaspora:
Issues in Geopolitics, Connection and Dissonance Online
Thursday,
July
22 @ 5:30 pm - CBD Public Dialogue at Studio 66

How
does diaspora become an active process? How can diaspora create
interaction, conflict, dialogue and community by sharing different
local stories of identity, culture, and knowledge? What does Africa
have to do with all this?
We
imagine
diaspora as generative and interactive conceptual space
rather than just as a location of displacement, violence, and loss.
CBD allows new levels of access to the scholar’s work at every
stage of the research process – notes, evidence/data collection,
argument/analysis – extending a dialogic hand to knowledgeable
research subjects who can act as co-theorists by speaking back,
interacting, and offering their own interpretations or critiques.
Consuming
Blackness Diasporically: A Transnational Performance Ethnography
Project and Diasporic Culture Archive. A multi-sited and
virtually
mediated collaborative ethnography project bringing together academic
scholars and local practitioners to document, archive and analyze
African diasporic expressive traditions. Talk with
Trinidad's independent contemporary choreographers
Thursday, 22 July
Artist
Talk featuring Makeda Thomas, Dave Williams, and Sonja Dumas. The
artists talk about
their work and processes. With collaborators, video, and sharing of
notes. Light
refreshments will be served.
Talk with
Dr. Ananya Chatterjea
Wednesday, 21 July at 7pm at
Studio 66
 History of
Odissi: Reconstruction of a Tradition is a talk about the way in
which Odissi, one of the oldest classical dance forms in India, existed
in its origins, and how it came to slowly degenerate due to certain
religious injunctions and particularly during British colonial rule due
to lack of support and resources. I will also share how the process of
reconstruction happened in the 1960's and ask at what cost this
reconstruction as a proscenium stage form happened. I will work through a
power point of images and videos. I am hopeful that this talk will open
up questions of what we, as decolonized peoples, have to do in order to
revive our histories. Must we submit to Europeanist ideas and write
down all historical narratives? or can we find other ways for our
histories to exist and still be safe?
Consuming
Ourselves:
Exploring Contemporary Ethnographic Methods & Ethics
Tuesday,
July
20 @ 7pm - CBD Public Dialogue at Studio 66

What
are our stories? What are the stories that we inherit and build on?
How do we tell our stories? How do we keep those stories and pass
them on? Who has the right to tell our stories? How do we build a
shared archive?
Contemporary
ethnography
is defined by cultures lived, and stories shared, across
multiple worlds. Ideas and artifacts circulate both locally and
globally. Increasingly, people define themselves not just as national
identities but also as hybrid, cosmopolitan, transnational, diasporic
citizens. In this post-colonial moment, the balance of power and
authority to represent is often contested. Through CBD, we
interrogate the ways ethnography is employed and deployed. With this
project we conceptualize a community of users contributing to,
dialoguing about, and debating the relationships between culture,
performance, identity and belonging in diaspora.
Consuming
Blackness Diasporically: A Transnational Performance Ethnography
Project and Diasporic Culture Archive. A multi-sited and
virtually
mediated collaborative ethnography project bringing together academic
scholars and local practitioners to document, archive and analyze
African diasporic expressive traditions.
Salon #2:
Trinidad
Masculinities and Femininities with Dr. Gabrielle
Hosein
Tuesday, 20 July at 7:30pm.
"PaperChase" Community Workshop with
Chevon Stewart PaperChase examines the history of Chinese migratory struggles and those contributions to Caribbean culture. Friday, 16 July from 5:30 - 7:30pm at Cascade Studio.
 We will build the foundation to share the often unheard voice of the history of Chinese migratory struggles and discover those contributions to the Caribbean culture. By delving into the history of slaves and immigrants from both China and Africa, we will explore how both cultures shape Caribbean identity today. To gain as broad a perspective of the Chinese experience in the Caribbean, we will look at it across different countries - Trinidad, Jamaica and Cuba. This workshop will ask, Who are we? What do we value? How do we connect or disconnect from each other? I want to conduct personal interviews with several people (of different generations) of mixed Asian and African heritage. Hopefully I will meet some of these people through the workshop.
MARCH 2010
A new site-specific work-in-progress by Celia Weiss Bambara25 March at 8pm at Alice Yard - 80 Roberts Street, Port of Spain
On Thursday 25 March, at 8.00 pm, Celia Weiss Bambara will perform a new site-specific work-in-progress at Alice Yard. She writes:
"Choreographic and improvisational ideas have a way of growing, shifting, and changing. I had originally intended to present a new improvisation at Alice Yard and discuss a bit about some of current working methods. Two things altered this improvisational path. Firstly, upon arriving at Alice Yard, I became entranced with the contours of the space and energies at work in the nooks and joints in between structures. Each one of these spaces seems to have a set of layered histories, and I began contemplating a site-specific work that would engage these spatial dynamics and energies.
"Secondly, I was confronted with the actuality of daily violence in Trinidad, and realised that I needed to process my reactions through my own corporeality and movement. In the US, I had been working on a set of ideas for a new piece, which addresses the cyclical and intergenerational nature of violence. Some of the questions that I have been asking are: How does grand-scale violence precipitate daily violence? How do we stop cycles of violence on our bodies? Can we find a moment of non-violence amidst daily violences? Research that correlates these ideas, experiences, and space will be shown as work-in-progress at Alice Yard. Aiybobo!"
Dancemaking/Choreography 18- 20 March for Tobago Division of Culture Monday, 22 March at University of the West Indies, Centre for Creative & Festival Arts
Dr. Celia Weiss Bambara, Artist in Residence, will offer a workshop in dancemaking that will engage participants in an African based
contemporary warm-up and technique. The three-hour workshop will
explore a few choreographic devices that critically inquire the base of
a diasporic form, rhythm, or memory. Participants will work on guided
improvisations, creating movement from a specific rhythm, ways to
workshop memory and collaborative phrase making. Participants should
come prepared to move, create and explore. Talk with Robert Young of THE CLOTH, Race, Identity & Being Here Wednesday, 17 March FEBRUARY 2010

Workshops
taught by guest artists, performance studies, and informal dialogues run
alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival (15 & 16 February 2010)
which embodies the artistry, spirit and energy of this residency.
Positions Carnival at the centre of performance studies and seeks to
engage the local and international community in study and conversation
around:
-how Carnival is understood, performed, discussed and consumed -how
Carnival performance express unique histories and events, and intersect
with nationalism, transnationalism, and global mobilities -how
class-based understandings of masculinity and femininity are linked to
the constitution of a Trinidadian nation, and how this is played out in
contemporary Carnival performance -how the local context of power and meaning influence the ways in which residents think of their experience
Myth,
Mas & Movement Makeda Thomas/Roots & Wings
Movement!Performance Study: Kalinda/Stickfight Competition Wednesday, 3 February at 6PM
Viey La Cou: Exploration of Traditional Carnival Characters Sunday, 7 February at 12PM
Performance Study: Re-Enactment of the Canboulay Riots Friday, 12 February at 5AM Women & Resistance in Canboulay Attillah Springer/IDAKEDA Saturday, 13 February at 3PM Performance Study: Jouvay Sunday, 14 February at 2AM Performance Study: Blue Devils of Paramin Monday, 15 February at 1PM Performance Study: Carnival Tuesday Mas Tuesday, 16 February
JANUARY 2010
Open House Friday, 29 January from 5-6pm at The Republic of Sydenham, Port of Spain Artist in Residence, Brittany Williams, rehearses a new solo work tentatively titled, "We were born to Suffer, Hung before Birth, Poverty has taught me otherwise" and invites those interested to observe the creation of the work in progress. Light refreshments will be served.
| "This
choreography surrounds lynching in the modern day context - the
education system, government, political lynching, racism, the lynching
of art and culture. This piece is about my personal struggle and pain
to get out of a society that accepts poverty, failure and destruction
freely." |
Modern Dance Class with Metamorphosis Dance Company Saturday, 23 January from 2pm - 3:15pm

Artist
in Residence, Brittany Williams teaches a technique class in Modern
Dance at the Caribbean School of Dancing in Port of Spain. Learn more
about Metamorphosis here.
Dinner at The Republic Sunday, 17 January at 6PM at The Republic of Sydenham, Port of Spain Meet 2010 Dance & Performance Institute Artists in Residence. Food and drinks served.
Project: "Moko" by Tasha Connolly Thursday, 14 January 2010
 The Moko arrived in Trinidad by “walking all the way across the
Atlantic Ocean from the West coast of Africa, laden with many, many
centuries of experience, and, in spite of all inhuman attacks and
encounters, yet still walks tall, tall, tall." (John Cupid, Caribbean
Beat) Artist in Residence, Tasha Connolly begins a weblog on her research on the moko jumbie tradition. In
2007, Tasha began apprenticing with Dragon de Souza at Keylemanjahro
School of Arts & Culture in Cocorite, Trinidad. Join Tasha as she
shares her continued study and research of the moko jumbie dance. http://mokoinfo.blogspot.com
Talk with Burton Sankeralli, author of Of Obeah and Modernity Monday, 11 January 2010 at 7pm at The Republic of Sydenham, Port of Spain
Performance: "Kenbe, Amour, Colére, Folie: Improvisations for Love"by Celia Weiss Bambara Saturday, 9 January 2010 at 9pm at The Republic of Sydenham, Port of Spain Inter-culturalism is a fraught space in which the micro-cosm of a romantic relationship enacts the very questions of our times. Who are we
allowed to love? How do we reconcile our differences? Who decides which
bodies can love? Who decides which bodies can speak differently about
love? Drawing upon Haitian novelist, Marie Chauvet’s once-banned
novel, Amour, Colére, Folie to express the ways in which the anxiety
of political and economic unrest are navigated by different female
voices, this work strives to express how one can hold on tight, to
hopes, dreams and liberty as well as love across cultures.
Salon #1: Pedagogy
Thursday, 7 January 2010 at 7pm at The Republic of Sydenham, Port of Spain
With Makeda Thomas, Artists in Residence, Sonja Dumas (Artistic Director and
Choreographer of CONTINUUM), Nicole Wesley (Associate Professor,
Academy for the Performing Arts, The University of Trinidad &
Tobago), and Attillah Springer (IDAKEDA)
| | | 2010
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE |
- ANANYA CHATTERJEA
- MEIDA MCNEAL
- MICHELLE ISAVA*
- NICOLE CASTOR
- CHEVON STEWART
- CELIA WEISS BAMBARA
- BRITTANY WILLIAMS
- TASHA CONNOLLY
*MALCOLM FELLOWSHIP FOR THE ARTS
AWARD RECIPIENT |
..........................................................................................CONTACT USEMAIL:institute@makedathomas.org
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INTERNATIONAL DANCE ARTISTES COMING TO
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO 18 January 2010, T&T
Newsday READ

Ananya Chatterjea, photo by V. Paul Virtucio |
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.......................................................................................... Chevon Stewart explores her Caribbean roots through danceBy MELISSA DASSRATH
Sunday, July 25 2010 ..........................................................................................
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