Makeda Thomas | Dance & Performance Institute

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2012 institute calendar

16 - 30 January
15 - 29 February
3 -17 March
2 April
9 - 16 April
4 - 25 June
9 - 30 July
12 July - 2 August
18 July - 1 August
27 - 28 July
6 - 19 August
10 Nov. - 2 Dec.
November TBA

Artist Residency: Jacob Cino
Artist Residency: Marlene Myrtil
Artist Residency: Magira Ross
NEW WAVES! Application Due
Artist Residency: Tamara Stronach
Artist Residency: Andrea Thompson
Artist Residency: Alexis Caputo
Artist Residency: McIntosh Jerahuni
New Waves! SUMMER Institute
New Waves! Commission PREMIERE
Artist Residency: Stafford Berry/C.Nance
Artist Residency: Tamara Williams
New Waves! Commission Project

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dance & performance institute
Founded in 2010, the Dance & Performance Institute is an international community of dance and performance artists,
a forum for exchange, and series of programs on contemporary dance & performance.

The Artist in Residence Program offers self-directed residencies to professional international dance and performance artists in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Self-directed residencies are opportunities where the artist is free to experiment and explore new directions in the production of their work. Interaction with other artist residents is encouraged through creative collaboration and informal discussion. The next call will be announced in 2013.

The New Waves! SUMMER Institute offers over 50 intensive master classes and workshops in contemporary dance, Caribbean dance, composition and repertory with an outstanding faculty of international dance artists. Through informal dialogues and Institute programs, participants create community, build connections with other dance professionals, and experience the unique cultural landscape of Trinidad & Tobago. Courses are held at the University of Trinidad & Tobago, Academy for the Performing Arts, held within the National Academy of the Performing Arts in the heart of the nation's capital, Port of Spain. Applications are due 2 April 2012. APPLY NOW!

new waves! 2012 18 July - 1 August 2012 in Port of Spain, Trinidad

GENERAL APPLICATIONS are being accepted until 2 April 2012. APPLY NOW!

2012 NEW WAVES! FACULTY: Makeda Thomas, Chris Walker, Ananya Chatterjea, Ras Mikey C, Dyane Harvey-Salaam, Rennie Harris, Tony Hall, Shani Collins, Delton Frank, Sonja Dumas, Akuzuru, Karen Prall, Queen GodIs

Email questions to institute@makedathomas.org.

The Pearl Primus Archive Project, which utilizes the archives of Dr. Pearl Primus as inspiration for generating original choreography, will be permanently installed at New Waves! Directed by Dr. Ursula Payne, the project will live as an embodied archive - in the corporeal and cultural terrains of the existing archives. It is supported by the Pearl Primus Collection of the American Dance Festival Archive Collection with materials created or collected by Primus and by others dating from circa 1920 to 1994, including correspondence, writings, legal documents, research and teaching materials, clippings, programs, printed materials, photographs, sound recordings, films, videos, and artifacts. (http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/adfprimuspearl/inv/)

new waves! commission project

The Dance & Performance Institute is pleased to announce the NEW WAVES COMMISSION PROJECT, to be presented in partnership with COCO Dance Festival. The project kicks off with two exciting WORLD PREMIERES!

WORLD PREMIERE OF MOREECHIKA - Friday, 27 July 2012 and Saturday, 28 July 2012
WORLD PREMIERE OF PALM OIL ROSARY - November 2012

The Local Dance Commission Program supports the local dance community by nurturing the creation of new dance work and premieres that new work to a wide audience. The International Choreographer's Commission Program (ICCP) further positions Trinidad & Tobago as a major site in the production of new choreographic works by international choreographers by supporting the creation of new dance work by choreographers from around the world.

2 WORLD PREMIERES in 2012!
Ananya Chatterjea's Moreechika
Chris Walker's Palm Oil Rosary
To be presented in partnership with COCO.

Ananya Chatterjea & Sherie Apungu in Kshoy!

THE ARTISTS
Ananya Chatterjea and Chris Walker are dance artists who, thru their engagement with the Institute, were inspired to create work. Chatterjea's "Moreechika" will explore the affect oil drilling projects have on global communities of color and portray how women from these communities resist and survive systemic and hierarchical violences associated with these projects. Contrasted, will be the abundance of oil and financial gain with the scarcity and poverty of the communities nearby and around oil drilling projects. Moreechika is the third performance in a four-year anti-violence artistic initiative that has been researching efforts among women from global communities of color to resist the violent and capitalist misuse of four physical elements in particular: land, gold, oil, and water. The initiative foregrounds embodied knowledge and incorporates scholarly research. (http://www.ananyadancetheatre.org/). Walker's "Palm Oil Rosary" began development during the first New Waves! Institute. The solo vocabulary was generated from prompts that sought to locate the body’s stories of guilt narrative. Features music by Andrea Bocelli “The Lord’s Prayer”, Abbaye Cisterciennes “Tout Jubile, Aujourd aui”, “Santus”, with traditional Kumina rhythms and text by the dancers.

COCO DANCE FESTIVAL
COCO, the Contemporary Choreographer's Collective is in its fourth year, having presented performances at Queens Hall (2009), Alice Yard and Bohemia (2010), and the historic Little Carib Theatre (2011). The collective is led by four independent artists – Dave Williams, Sonja Dumas, Nicole Wesley and Nancy Herrera. COCO has featured Makeda Thomas, Anika Marcelle, Dave Williams, Nicole Wesley, Rachel Lee, Sonja Dumas, up-and-coming choreographer Bridgette Wilson, and the visual and performance artist Akuzuru. In 2010, the Dance & Performance Institute partnered with COCO Dance Festival to present Artist-in-Residence, Binahkaye Joy's “Adelaide's Ocean Lullaby. The 2012 COCO Festival will be held in November.

2012 artist residencies

From top L: Andrea Thompson, photo by Kimberly C. Gaines; McIntosh Jerahuni; Tami Stronach; Marlene Myrtil, photo by Jean Gros-Abadie; Monstah Black, photo by Sienna Shields; Magira Ross; Jacob Cino, photo by Georgia Esporlas; Alexis Caputo; C. Kemal Nance, photo by Steve Clark; Stafford Berry Tamara Williams, photo by David P. France;

The Dance & Performance Institute is pleased to invite a diverse group of 10 artists and scholars for 2012 artist residencies. The artists in residence are independent directors, performers in renowned dance companies, multidisciplinary artists, and professors at respected academic institutions. Each were invited for their potential to make an important contribution to the dance and performance landscape in Trinidad & Tobago: Jacob Cino, Marlene Myrtil, Andrea Thompson, Magira Ross, McIntosh Jerahuni, Tamara Stronach, Alexis Caputo, Stafford Berry, C. Kemal Nance, and Tamara Williams.

UPCOMING!!!
Artist-in-Residence, Marlene Myrtil (France/Martinique) develops "Blues Ecarlate, based on the novel "Humus" by Fabienne Kanor, 15 to 29 February 2012.

"Collide" by Jacob Cino
Saturday, 28 January The Dance Studio at The Academy for the Performing Arts, 7:45pm

"Collide" is a structured-improvised dance work in process - a series of questions into the combining of contact improvisation and folk dance of Trinidad & Tobago: Is contact improvisation legitimate, does it have a place in Trinidad dance culture? Is it needed? Appreciated? Familiar? Is it possible, in the meeting of these two forms, that both retain their nuances and specificities and still inform one another? What is lost? What remains? And what is gained? The dancers are students from University of Trinidad & Tobago/Academy of the Performing Arts and members of Sonja Dumas' Continuum Dance Company. Featuring performance by Jacob Cino. 30 min. See this event on Facebook.

Contact Improvisation JAM with Artist-in-Residence, Jacob Cino
Friday, 20 January at Caribbean School of Dancing, 2A Dere Street, Port of Spain 9pm

Contact Improvisation - physical contact provides the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation. Join Artist-in-Residence, Jacob Cino, as he opens the space at the historic Caribbean School of Dance for a CONTACT IMPROVISATION JAM!!! ALL WELCOME!! No dance experience necessary!
See this event on Facebook.

Artist-in-Residence, Jacob Cino (Montreal, Canada) develops "Collide", 16 to 30 January 2012.

Making Stage: the dance & performance institute

new waves! 2011

New Waves! 2011 gathered 60 participants – 40 international participants from India, St. Croix, the United States, Canada, Jamaica, and 20 participants from Trinidad & Tobago. Over the course of two weeks, 108 classes, workshops, programs and events took place at NAPA, the historic Trinidad Theatre Workshop, Caribbean School of Dancing, the Royal Botanic Gardens, and Alice Yard.

2011 NEW WAVES! FACULTY: Dyane Harvey-Salaam, Arcell Cabuag, Ananya Chatterjea, Rennie Harris, Makeda Thomas, Sonja Dumas, Dave Williams, Chris Walker, Vaughn Toussaint, Akuzuru, Ursula Payne, Patrick Parson

COURSE OFFERINGS:
Pearl Primus Archive Project Workshop
Eleo Pomare Workshop
Forces of Nature Workshop
Building Movement: Fundamentals of Choreographic Process
Contemporary Dance
House Dance
Traditional West African Dance
Dunham Technique
Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE Repertory Workshop
Caribbean Dance
From Scratch on a Dirt Road
Movement, Meditation, Mindpower: Site-Specific Dance
Living Poetry Outloud:Spoken Word, Poetry, Writing & Performance
Ananya Dance Theater Workshop
Pilates

Alongside

"Complexity of Indigeneity in Cultural Production"
"Imagining Contemporary Cultural Production in Trinidad & Tobago"
"Theorizing Strategies of Reinvigorating the Cultural Context"
"SHE" with Dyane Harvey-Salaam at Trinidad Theatre Workshop
NCIC-Youth Program Workshop
Jouvay Process with Tony Hall
Orisha Palais, Kali Puja
Shango Festival - Ade Odun Sango
Emancipation Day Celebrations

New Waves! 2011 WELCOME PACKET - Full Programme View

2010 artist residencies

2010 Artists in Residence: Chevon Stewart, Michelle Isava, Ananya Chatterjea, Binahkaye Joy, Celia Weiss Bambara, Nicole Castor, Meida McNeal, Brittany Williams, Tasha Connolly, Chanzo Greenidge and Omise'eke Tinsley (Guest). These artists in residence are experienced artists with a wealth of experience in cultural production and scholars,with PhDs in Theater Arts & Dance, Cultural Anthropology, Performance Studies, International Relations and Critical Dance Studies. The 2010 Artists in Residence presented more than 20 public program alongside their artistic residencies. These programs involved 200 participants and hundreds more from the general public throughout Trinidad & Tobago.

From top L: Binahkaye Joy, photo by Arnaldo James; Michelle Isava, photos by Narvis Bracamonte and Morella Cuba; Chevon Stewart; Ananya Chatterjea; Celia Weiss Bambara; Consuming Blackness Diasporically (Meida McNeal, Nicole Castor, Chanzo Greenidge); Brittany Williams, photo by Zone 17; Tasha Connolly, photo by Elliot Francois.

2010 ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAMS & EVENTS:

The Mother Dance-Dialogue Workshop
Saturday, 4 December 2010 at Trinidad Theatre Workshop, Port of Spain. 10am-12pm

This community dance workshop explores the relationships between mothers, daughters and sisters through movement. The workshop is comprised of several dance processes designed for duos, trios, or small groups of women and girls who are a part of the same family. The workshop's movement dialogue centers around the personal realities of mothers, women and girls. Presented in collaboration with The Idakeda Group

Site Specific Space Activations
Binahkaye Joy space activates on Gayelle TV's We News. Friday, 3 December 2010 at 7:30pm.

Binahkaye Joy conducts her visionary space activation at sites throughout Trinidad & Tobago. She writes:
"As a Visionary Space Activator, I interpret the elements of any space through my vibrant, dancing body. Every space offers unique textures, shapes, sounds, smells, colors, air quality, history, meaning, community purpose, and much more. The space in which I dance interacts with my physical/ emotional/ spiritual/ creative body in different ways, and this union of body and space births a new dance each time".

THE MOTHER PROJECT by Binahkaye Joy
Saturday, 27 November 2010 at 8PM and Sunday, 28 November 2010 at 7PM, Alice Yard and Bohemia.

The Mother Project is an interactive choreo-biography that explores the lives, secrets, and dreams of the mothers through dance, song, drama, and intuitive processes. It explores the intersections and possibilities of movement created from personal and communal experiences. The choreographic and artistic development originally evolved from stories and memories of Joy's mother and grandmothers.

Kshoy!/Decay Workshop & PERFORMANCE with Ananya Dance Theatre
Monday, 26 July 2010 at 1pm. The Dance Studio at the Academy for the Performing Arts, Port of Spain.
PERFORMANCE at 4pm.

Kshoy!/Decay looks at violence against global communities of women of color through the paradigms of mud (land), gold, oil, and water. 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.

Contemporary Indian Dance: Exploring a Feminine, Feminist Vocabulary with Ananya Chatterjea
Monday, 26 July 2010 at 11am. The Dance Studio at the Academy for the Performing Arts, Port of Spain.

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. Presented in partnership with University of Trinidad & Tobago, Academy for the Performing Arts

Interrogating Diaspora: Issues in Geopolitics, Connection and Dissonance Online
Thursday, 22 July 2010 @ 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.

History of Odissi: Reconstruction of a Tradition
Wednesday, 21 July 2010 at 7pm at Studio 66, Barataria

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? Presented in partnership with The Philosophical Society and Studio 66. Read The Rise & Fall of Odissi, Trinidad & Tobago Express Newspaper

Consuming Ourselves: Exploring Contemporary Ethnographic Methods & Ethics
Tuesday, 20 July 2010 @ 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 is 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. A project of Meida McNeal, Nicole Castor and Chanzo Greenidge.

Salon #2: Trinidad Masculinities and Femininities with Dr. Gabrielle Hosein
Tuesday, 20 July 2010 at 7:30pm at Mango Tree House

"PaperChase" Community Workshop & SHOWING with Chevon Stewart
Friday, 16 July 2010 from 5:30 - 7:30pm at Cascade Studio, Port of Spain.

PaperChase examines the history of Chinese migratory struggles and those contributions to Caribbean culture. 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? Read Chevon Stewart Explores Her Caribbean Roots Through Dance, Trinidad & Tobago Newsday

A new site-specific work-in-progress by Celia Weiss Bambara
25 March 2010 at 8pm at Alice Yard - 80 Roberts Street, Port of Spain

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? Aiybobo!"    Presented in partnership with Alice Yard.

Dancemaking/Choreography
18- 20 March 2010 for Tobago Division of Culture
Monday, 22 March 2010 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 2010 at selected venues.

FEBRUARY 2010: CARNIVAL PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE
Workshops, performance studies, and informal dialogues run alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival (15 & 16 February 2010):

Myth, Mas & Movement Makeda Thomas/Roots & Wings Movement!
Performance Study: Kalinda/Stickfight Competition Wednesday, 3 February
Performance Study: Re-Enactment of the Canboulay Riots Friday, 12 February
Women & Resistance in Canboulay with Attillah Springer Saturday, 13 February
Performance Study: Jouvay Sunday, 14 February
Performance Study: Blue Devils of Paramin Monday, 15 February
Performance Study: Carnival Tuesday Mas Tuesday, 16 February

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.

Modern Dance Class with Metamorphosis Dance Company
Saturday, 23 January from 2pm - 3:15pm at Caribbean School of Dancing, 2A Dere Street, Port of Spain.

Artist in Residence, Brittany Williams teaches a technique class in Modern Dance.

Meet 2010 Dance & Performance Institute Artists in Residence
Sunday, 17 January at 6PM at The Republic of Sydenham, Port of Spain

Project: "Moko" by Tasha Connolly
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.

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 (Director of the Institute), 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) Read International Dance Artistes Coming to Trinidad & Tobago, Trinidad & Tobago Newsday.

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. Salons are organized around specific themes around the artist, methods, and pedagogies of contemporary dance and performance. Open to Artists in Residence and Invited Guests.