Dance & Performance Institute

What's New @New Waves! 2013

Sat, 04 May 2013 16:29:00 -0400

Apply online TODAY: http://makedathomasinstitute.tumblr.com/newwavesapp.
*Late applications are being accepted until 18 May 2013.

Join the international community of New Waves! Institute. New Waves! is made special by alumni from all over the world, whom testify to life changing experiences and lifelong New Waves! friends. Here’s what some have said:

This Institute was a two-way learning country road – filled with surprise and I feel I will be unpacking the experience for weeks to come.

New Waves is just what the medicine woman ordered. So THANK YOU for being grounded, brave, passionate, wise, generous, and focused enough to LIVE YOUR DANCE. It truly is transforming many worlds with each step…more than you know.

The New Waves Summer Institute has left massive marks in my dancing, thinking abilities and my heart as well. Your faculty was so giving and so sincere and passionate about dance which set the tone from the beginning. Waking up every morning to rush to Chris’ class to sing and dance was so surreal for me. I felt so surrounded connected with my peers, the space, and the spiritual realm; it was a magical moment that I will never forget.

What’s New @ New Waves! 2013

2013 Courses Offerings:

Contemporary Dance w/Makeda Thomas, Caribbean Dance w/Chris Walker, House Dance w/Rennie Harris, Pilates, Forces of Nature Workshop w/Dyane Harvey-Salaam, Modern Dance w/Andrea Woods, Repertory Workshop w/Sonja Dumas, Contact Improvisation w/Jacob Cino, Jouvay Process w/Tony Hall

T&T Moves Film Festival: Special Screening Featuring Dance Related Films

In this special edition of the T&T Moves Film Festival, presented in partnership with the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival Community Screening Program, the Institute has curated 2 evenings of dance-centered or dance-related films that exist as vectors of gender, class, sexuality, popular life, and culture in a pan-diasporic Caribbean framework. Films include: Carmen & Geoffrey and Alex D’Verteuil’s Jab! The Blue Devils of Paramin.

Carmen & Geoffrey. Wednesday, 24 July at 7pm,

TT Film Festival 99 Belmont Circular Road, Port of Spain.

Jab! The Blue Devils of Paramin. Thursday, 25 July at 7pm

Springbank Avenue Residence, Port of Spain.

This program is made possible by the University of Trinidad/Academy for Performing Arts.

Roundtable Series with Scholar-in-Residence, Claire Tancons.

Saturday, 27 July, Tobago.

Claire Tancons (1977, Guadeloupe, French West Indies) is a curator, writer and researcher whose work focuses on carnival, public ceremonial culture and popular movements. She was the associate curator for Prospect.1, the first New Orleans biennial and Contemporary Arts Center, also in New Orleans (2007-9) and a curatorial consultant for Harlem Biennale (2010-12). As curator for the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008) and guest curator for CAPE09, the second Cape Town biennial (2009) she organized processions mixing the traditions of political demonstrations and carnival parades, opening the way to what has since been seen as a new model of curatorship, an example of cross-cultural curating. In 2012, she founded Extemporary a research-based artistic and curatorial platform dedicated to public performance and was a research curator for Benin Biennale.

The Roundtable Series is part of Making Stage: A Space of Radical Openness and Emancipation, a 5-year research project headed by Director of the Institute, Makeda Thomas. The project engages the work of scholars-in-residence Ananya Chatterjea, Claire Tancons, and Tony Hall through a series of public roundtable lectures, collection of written essays, and publication of “Making Stage”.

Tobago Heritage Festival

The Tobago Heritage Festival is an annual event created to preserve the unique cultural traditions of Tobago - the “jewel of the Caribbean”. The Festival runs from the middle of July to early August. Villagers from different communities perform with singing, dancing and feasting and wear costumes that depict life from the early 1900’s. During the year each Community has its own festival, with events that range from ole time mas, ole time dance, old time wedding, limbo and jig to stick fighting.

More info soon again! Let’s Dance

APPLY ONLINE NOW for New Waves! 2013. Email...

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:18:36 -0500

APPLY ONLINE NOW for New Waves! 2013.

Email institute@makedathomas.org for more info. Let’s Dance!

New Waves! 2013 Announced! Let's Dance!

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 14:15:00 -0400

New Waves! 2013 ANNOUNCED.

To run alongside Tobago Heritage Festival

Claire Tancons joins as Scholar-in-Residence

Commission Project Presents Sonja Dumas’

“Strange Tales of an Island Shade”

15 October 2012 - Port of Spain - The 3rd New Waves! Institute will be 10 days, to be held 22 July through 1 August 2013. New Waves! 2013 is distinguished by its programs being held in Trinidad AND Tobago, to run concurrently with the Tobago Heritage Festival. The Institute is offering 3 days of intensive classes,workshops and unique experiences in Tobago and a week of programs at the University of Trinidad and Tobago/Academy for Performing Arts. Faculty include Makeda Thomas, Chris Walker, Rennie Harris, and Dyane Harvey-Salaam. Claire Tancons is the 2013 Scholar-in-Residence along with Tony Hall, who will lead a special Jouvay Institute for Dancers, co-developed with Institute Director, Makeda Thomas. The New Waves! Commission Project will present “Strange Tales of an Island Shade” by Trinidadian choreographer, Sonja Dumas.

→ New Waves! Commission Project

→ Sonja Dumas & Strange Tales of an Island Shade

“This is exciting times for the Institute,” says director Makeda Thomas. “Having recently received support from the Ministry of Art and Multiculturalism, and with development of the Wild Seed Scholarship Fund - created and completely funded by New Waves! alumni - we’re encouraged about the possibilities for what it means to create dance and how we project ourselves into the future.” Thomas is currently writing “Making Stage”, a book on the development of the Dance and Performance Institute, part of a 5-year research initiative developed with the scholars-in-residence.

“The participants who come to New Waves! do so not only attend to study dance with world-class artists, but to engage in meaningful conversation about our practice, to re-articulate overstandings of race, gender, sexuality, historical narratives and cultural production, and to create a shared history in which we each function not merely as abstractions, but connect in essential ways that brings out light in one another. The entire process goes further than just coming to a new landscape. It’s about developing new eyes with which to see that landscape and thus, experience it differently. We’re continually constructing and deconstructing the mechanisms by which we engage the space and our selves. Now in our 3rd year, an established rhythm with a kind of structured improvisational mode has emerged.”

Applications for New Waves! 2013 can be found at www.makedathomas.org/institute and are being accepted until 4 May 2013. Email questions to newwavesinstitute@gmail.com.

MORE INFO ON NEW WAVES! 2013

22 July to 1 August 2013 in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago

Each year, 50 dance artists from all over the world gather for the New Waves! Institute. It is a unique, autonomous space where vital conversations on the body, movement, cultural production, hybridity and diaspora are had; where dominant discourses on art and culture are challenged and where new progressive languages could be spoken. Roundtable discussions, performances, limes, and symposiums round out the experience of the unique cultural landscape of Trinidad & Tobago.

Study Contemporary Dance with choreographer and director Makeda Thomas and guest artists, Rennie Harris, Dyane Harvey-Salaam and Chris Walker! Let’s Dance!

Courses Offered: Contemporary Dance, Caribbean Dance, House Dance, Pilates, Forces of Nature Workshop, Repertory Workshop, Jouvay Process for Dancers, Roundtable Series

Scholar-in-Residence, Claire Tancons

Claire Tancons (1977, Guadeloupe, French West Indies) is a curator, writer and researcher whose work focuses on carnival, public ceremonial culture and popular movements. She was the associate curator for Prospect.1, the first New Orleans biennial and Contemporary Arts Center, also in New Orleans (2007-9) and a curatorial consultant for Harlem Biennale (2010-12). As curator for the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008) and guest curator for CAPE09, the second Cape Town biennial (2009) she organized processions mixing the traditions of political demonstrations and carnival parades, opening the way to what has since been seen as a new model of curatorship, an example of cross-cultural curating. In 2012, she founded Extemporary a research-based artistic and curatorial platform dedicated to public performance. She is currently a research curator for Benin Biennale 2012.

Tancons is regularly invited to speak, write and teach about her work and research. Over the last couple of years she has lectured in academic and art institutions in North America, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America, and Asia. Upcoming lectures in 2012 include the Institutions by Artists Convention, Vancouver and AICA’s Southeastern Arts Writing Symposium, Atlanta. In July 2012 Tancons taught Art on Parade? The Processional as Artistic and Curatorial Medium as a summer course in the Visual Knowledge Intensive Laboratory at IUAV University in Venice. Her essays have been featured in academic and art journals (NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art; Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism; Third Text; e-flux journal etc) and exhibition catalogues, and translated into Korean, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and French. Reviews about her work have appeared in North American (New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Art Papers, Fillip, Border Crossings), European (Flash Art, Frieze, Mousse, Arte e Critica, Springerin) and Asian (Noon) art journals and magazines. She was the recipient of the 2012 inaugural Alice Award for Emerging Critic for her essay Occupy Wall Street: Carnival Against Capital? Carnivalesque as Protest Sensibility and is a participant in FIAC’s Young Curators Invitational 2012.

Tancons holds an MA in Museum Studies from the École du Louvre in Paris (1999), a Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Montreal (1999), an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute in London (2000) and is a former curatorial fellow of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (2001) and the Walker Art Center (2003). She has been the recipient of various research and travel grants from French and American institutions including the Regional Council of Guadeloupe (2006), the French Ministry of Education (2006), Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (2006), the Foundation for Arts Initiatives (2007 and 2009), the Andy Warhol Foundation (2009), Institut Français (2011) and was awarded an Artistic Production Grant from the Prince Claus Fund (2009). Since 2006 she has traveled extensively in the Caribbean and Africa to pursue her research on contemporary carnivals and masquerades and alternative genealogies of performance art. She is based in New Orleans and works in situ.

Jouvay Process for Dancers with Tony Hall

Jouvay Process for Dancers comes out of Jouvay Process Popular Theatre (JPTP), an interventionist performance/production model for seeing art works happen. It is a framework for personal or group development, or for training artists to deepen their craft, and their consciousness, in direct relations to everything around them. JPTP is conceived as a prompt to start your own conscious meditation on Jouvay Process. In a sense, it set you on your own journey or facilitates the journey that you might have already embarked upon. Engaging a series of creatives exercises, dancers move through an embodied exploration of their own popular culture, physicalizing and deepening their own consciousness in the context of their social , political, psychic, psychological, philosophical and natural environments. Through this stratagem, we can consolidate in our selves the full, creative and imaginative energy of the emancipation traditions set down by own ancestors. In this way, Jouvay Process for Dancers can activate the liberating power of our emancipation ancestry and, through self-knowledge, lead to sophisticated personal and group movement.

PARTICIPANT INFO

Participants are required to be present for the entire duration of 10 days of the New Waves! 2013.

How to Apply

APPLY ONLINE here: makedathomasinstitute.tumblr.com/newwavesapp by 4 May 2013. *$250 deposit required at application

Cost to Participate

**EARLY REGISTRATION Apply for New Waves! 2013 by 15 December 2012 and receive a $150 discount.

$1050 USD for International participants | $525 for Caribbean-based participants. Includes registration for all classes, events and accommodation in shared artist housing. Meals are not included. Full Payment is due by 17 May 2013.

Contact Us Email newwavesinstitute@gmail.com

"In this model, culture spreads like the surface of a body of water, spreading towards available..."

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 15:59:42 -0400

“In this model, culture spreads like the surface of a body of water, spreading towards available spaces or trickling downwards towards new spaces through fissures and gaps, eroding what is in its way. The surface can be interrupted and moved, but these disturbances leave no trace, as the water is charged with pressure and potential to always seek its equilibrium, and thereby establish smooth space.”

- Rhizomes.net

Situating performance: Site Specific Considerations in Caribbean Space"

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:44:00 -0400

On Saturday, 12 October at 5:30pm at Medulla Gallery in Woodbrook, as part of the COCO Dance Festival, Institute Director Makeda Thomas led a discussion “Situating performance: Site Specific considerations in Caribbean Space”:

If site-specific dance can be defined as dance presented outside of the concert stage, then how is that contextualized in the Caribbean space where our great performance traditions are, as a matter of course, presented outside of the concert stage? Because, it is not the mere placing of dance ‘in de road’ or in a gallery space that makes it site-specific. That would be site-based, site-influenced or even site-adapted work. Site-specific works involves layered processes, beginning with the choreographer’s creation of the movement; to considering how that movement will be viewed from multiple perspectives, away from a static audience position; to conceptuality and theatricality generated from specific architectural, historical, political, economic, social and/or environmental characteristics of the site; to the audience members (who could also be participants), who become “an embodiment of the site’s cultural knowledge” (LeFevre). In other words, the work is intrinsically and permanently connected to the site - opening us up to the possibilities of the space, the people in it, at that particular point in time, creating a communal memory to bear new, living meaning(s) on our understanding of the space and the performance.

What is changed here by the presentation of these works this evening? And what does it mean? Continuum’s “Angels & Lights”, an experimental work around the sculpture of Wendy Nanan, nods at the history of the term site specific, which came out of sculpture in the 1970’s. It “cites” Nanan’s work, which considers the imagery of Lord Krishna and the cherub (rather than the gallery space) as place; as the site. The blue indigo presence of these sculptures reminds the choreographer of the blue devils of Carnival. And as an audience, we know where this lives. But as transparent as the layers of glass doors which separate each sculptural piece, (like the site-specific choreographic process) is a question about the ability of dance to inscribe itself in this space, particularly when we consider Dumas did not paint the dancer’s body for not wanting to ”stain the beautiful Medulla floors with blue paint at this time”. Of course, as Dumas pointed out during the discussion, no one is interested in ‘damaging” the Medulla space. But bare feet, sound in the usually quiet space, and bodies climbing the walls aside, the questions remains: What agency does the Caribbean dancing body really have in a, this gallery space? And how is it seen?

Sculptures by Wendy Nanan at Medulla Gallery.

Continuum dancer, Elisha Bartels in “Angels & Light” by Sonja Dumas. Photo by Karen Johnstone Motiontography.

Michelle Isava’s “See No Evil” asks us to “sight” the space, the bodies and the potential of it, differently. Filmed in the centre of the Savannah, featuring sun salutations and capoeira esquiva movements, it is about the social surveillance of bodies. A small white box with two eyes holes sits in a cavernous, stark white room. A tiny set of earplugs allow the viewer to also listen in as they watch the looped video. It’s a very intimate act - watching the dancer in this way. Because it is a recording and not live, she remains unaware and is unaffected by our gaze. The work puts our visuality at the core of its function, while proposing that the gaze can be rendered harmless if not acknowledged. As we consider the salutations - movement for strength and flexibility of the muscles and the spine - followed by defensive, dodging movements, we see Isava’s attempt to reject that gaze. Yet, ”there is no freedom as the body is constantly being observed by the gaze of a million eyes,” Isava concedes.

During the discussion, we spent some time distinguishing site-specific from site-based, or site-adapted work. In attendance, were around 8 Visual Arts majors from UWI who really sought to not only to understand those distinctions, but to place in within their own cultural context. Cited, were a few examples, from the theatre and performance: Where a Carnival procession is not necessarily site-specific in and of itself - there are enactments, such as “Canboulay”, hosted annually by Eintou Springer and built on a specific historic and physical location - that is absolutely site-specific. Akuzuru’s 2007 work “Transportal - The Ascent”, presented in Martinique at Fondes Saint Jacques Estate in Ste. Marie, is site-specific. ”Earthology” (2008) created and presented inside a banyan tree in Kenjeri, in a rural area on the outskirts of Bangalore is also site-specific. Her later work, “Vein” (2009) presented around Alice Yard in Woodbrook, would be more site-adapted, as it could be easily reconfigured to be specific to a different site. I offer one other: “Avocat Waterfall of Re-Birth”, a site specific environmental street theatre installation based on Peter Minshall’s ‘WASHERWOMAN and MANCRAB’, by students in the Trinity in Trinidad Global Learning Site study program course, ‘Festival Arts as Cultural Performance’, developed through Tony Hall’s Jouvay Popular Theatre Process [JPTP]. But again, these are not centered on dance.

Collectively, we bounced around the idea of a time-space complex of Caribbean site-specific dance work - a more spontaneous, improvisatory, extemporaneous citing of the specific, manifest thru cultural architectures and linked to who is in the space at the time to “sight” the action. There will be more site-specific dance presented in Trinidad, the discussion suggested. And herein, is an opportunity to bring more people into the conversation on dance in Trinidad & Tobago.

Director’s Choice! Makeda Thomas, Director of the Dance...

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 13:53:29 -0400

Director’s Choice!

Makeda Thomas, Director of the Dance & Performance Institute shares 10 of her favorite photos from New Waves! 2012 by Photographer-in-Residence, Maria Nunes. Let’s Dance!

GIVE THANKS for an incredible 2nd season of New Waves!

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Greetings!

I’m so proud of this 2nd year of the New Waves! Institute. We’ve grown - and I can see the Institute starting to conjure its own alchemy. In a recent interview for a new Guardian magazine, I talked about the Institute being a body; a body that is of all of us, but which has its own life; its own way of drawing breath; of expelling; that it has its own pulse; its own systems of checks and balances, with both negative and positive characteristics that makes it vital; that it has its own way of doing and making meaning. I compared my work as director of the Institute to labor and midwifery; how much like when I gave birth to Shiloh, and even though I’d never given birth before - I knew that I had the body knowledge to know what to do.

45 participants - from Kenya, Guadeloupe, Venezuela, China, United States, Canada and, of course, Trinidad & Tobago - joined the core of 8 faculty members and 8 guest artists in two weeks of dance, discussion, and life together. I saw a giving group of dancers with a brilliant collective mind. For the vigorous roundtable series, we discussed: ”the situational compass of the Caribbean, and more specifically, of Trinidad; how we could re-articulate our understandings of race/gender/sexuality/historical narratives/cultural production” (Chatterjea) and how we could all function not merely as abstractions (e.g. in strict roles), but connect in essential ways that alters and brings out light in one another? The inhale and echoes of this conversation was felt throughout our journey together. And of this sincere gesture towards another form of knowledge and overstanding (success, failures and all), I am proud.

There is so much more to proud of New Waves! Our commission project is unique in that is the participants that are the Patrons. We are the Philanthropists, the Curators, the Supporters, the Funders This year, we presented 2 works which collectively featured 20 dancers: the WORLD PREMIERE of Moreechika by Ananya Dance Theatre as part of the International Choreographers Commission Program and the premiere of Chris Walker’s Palm Oil Rosary, as part of the Local Dance Commissioning Program.The quality of work presented and the level of engagement with our new audience sings the potential of this project going forward. Asé!

I’m thankful for the role local dancers and artists in this year’s New Waves! From our COCO collaborators on the New waves Commission Project to the 10 UTT scholarship students who were instrumental in welcoming us all into the APA space, to the 4 brilliant musicians - Muhammad Muwakil, Sheena Joseph, Marvin George and Camille Quamina - that joined us for the Commission Project to Adam Ade Ola, the “consummate ambassador of Trinidad & Tobago” according to Chris Walker. Ade gently guided participants through the historical and cultural frameworks they encountered in Walker’s creative process. Robert Young again hosted a large group of us for an all-night ceremonial tour that took us from Balandra to “tong” where we danced the route of the original Carnival rebellions.

The huge wave of enthusiasm that washed over Belmont, Port of Spain during the joyous Opening Gala was the beginning of many beautiful dancing memories in Trinidad! We remember the furious dancing at the Studio Visit Series with Malick Folk Performing Company. We remember the Kali Puja in St. Augustine. We remember the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Arouca and later feasting on their delicious food at Emancipation Village. We remember beautiful Maracas Beach and the sweet Tassa side that greeted us as we settled in. We remember Biggie! We remember the beautiful sunset and the powerful prayer offered by ‘Spanish’ in Arima. We remember Ella Andall going straight up to Alexis to dance Oya and give a quick lesson on the meaning of the movements. We remember all the stories and ideas shared with one another and how it opened us to possibilities of opening our selves up even more. We remember.

During the Emancipation procession in IndepenDANCE Square, I had a conversation with Aisha Watson. I told her that should she be separated from the group, she should return to the truck. Which was, itself, always moving. It’s a fitting metaphor for the Institute we decided - this idea of place being found in flux. And there is much freedom in that.

Let’s Dance!

Makeda Thomas

Director, New Waves!

Birthing A Dance Movement

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 11:51:00 -0400

Birthing A Dance Movement :

Birthing a dance movement

Published:

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Gillian Moore

"Movement is the last manifestation of your reality. It is not what you say, but what you DO that..."

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

“Movement is the last manifestation of your reality. It is not what you say, but what you DO that confirms you.”

- New Waves! 2012 Mantra by Rennie Harris, New Waves! FACULTY

The Space of Radical Openness & Emancipation

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:10:00 -0400

At the end of New Waves! 2012, I had a conversation with 3 participants - Catherine Denecy (a former member of Urban Bush Women), Laura Levinson (an undergraduate dance major at McAlister), and Emanuelee Bean (a poet from Houston) - about the future of the Institute. It was an important conversation…

Individuals coming to New Waves! must shift their ideas from a passive engagement of the Institute, to thinking about the Institute as a practice of freedom. It is not only about what is taught in the space, but how it is taught. When some of us hear ‘freedom”, we automatically jump into a space of “I can do whatever I want.” The Institute places freedom within the context of community.

It’s been my experience that in this practice of freedom, and in trying to have a democratic teaching practice, there are moments of outbursts - from faculty and participants alike. I will admit, it can take some time to unpack the experience. But how do I, as the director, in that moment, balance all that energy? And with artists, it’s plenty energy. It can take up a lot of space - mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. Sometimes, I ignore it. Give it no energy. There is great wisdom in that. Sometimes, I send the madness packing. Faster than that! And sometimes I try to instill hope in the value of what they have to offer the community. “To successfully do the work of unlearning domination, a democratic educator has to cultivate a spirit of hopefulness about the capacity of individuals to change.” (Hooks, 73)

1 month later - in September 2012, I was invited to participate in the Dancing Fugitive Futures Symposium at the Institute for Advancement at the University of Minnesota.

I was asked to talk about the structure of the Institute. I described it as a web. But moreso, it is a wave. For each wave, we deconstruct and reconstruct how we’re riding, how it feels, how it should flow. And sometimes, it is the sudden, waves that requires an agility those used to little boxes may find difficult to belle around. Some waves wash up all kinds of garbage and debris - insecurities, hierarchical devotions, schupidness, pettiness…And some of that may be fine. What is tantamount, is that each individual remains committed to the community process, to being present.

“The more one participates, the deeper the politics also, so, the better the art, the more articulated the politics.” (HALL 303)

The Institute is a Mas. ”And jouvay,.. is carried as an enduring metaphor for the beginning or awakening of a distinct and unique human consciousness of fluid and authentic individuality, as opposed to static and commercial individualism.”

“It is an accomplishment when u convene a group of artists and you accomplish anything at all. Artists are inherently selfish”, Chris Walker once said to me. How does the space remain inspiring for me? How can everyone be free in the space? Because the Institute is an international community - with multiple cultural contexts placed within the social and political rubicon of race and class in T&T, the spaces for shared negative beliefs are neutralized, de-powered, decentered, destabilized, often paradoxical, many times, confusing. So how do we show the way?

The Institute, we’ve realized, is a Map. In curating the Institute, a sort of fractal pattern recognition is required, where the courses offered, the works commissioned and presented, the discussions and essays written, may or may not have an immediate connection; but are connected in an almost Papillon-Method, through increasingly deeper and multiply-linked ways, with the potential for independent interspatial activity at any given moment. This is the way. But how does it move?

“Thus, it became obvious that the organizing principle I had been searching for was ‘emancipation.’ That is the foundation, the opening (L’Ouverture). (Toussaint Louverture, translated literally ‘all saints awakening.’) This was a ‘jouvay’ experience, an awakening. From then on, anytime I am lost, unable to figure out where I am, or what to do, or where I am going, all I have to do is to meditate on the word ‘emancipation’ and my awareness deepens into a new consciousness of ‘seeing freedom and bearing witness to freedom,’ the essence of ‘emancipation’. This liberates my spirit once again and fills me with a clarity of mind such as the founders of Haiti, or the batonniers in the little conflicts of the Camboulay Riots and the Hosay Riots, experienced - even if that clarity always proves to be temporary.” (Hall, 300)

WORLD PREMIERE of “Moreechika” by Ananya Dance...

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 04:24:00 -0400

WORLD PREMIERE of “Moreechika” by Ananya Dance Theater for the NEW WAVE! COMMISSION PROJECT, International Choreographers Commission Program. 27 & 28 July 2012. Images by Photographer-in-Residence, Maria Nunes.

WORLD PREMIERE of “Palm Oil Rosary: Recall” by Chris...

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 04:14:00 -0400

WORLD PREMIERE of “Palm Oil Rosary: Recall” by Chris Walker. NEW WAVES! COMMISSION PROJECT Local Dance Commission Project. 27 & 28 July 2012. Images by Photographer-in-Residence, Maria Nunes.

PALM OIL ROSARY: ReCall (2012)

Choreography: Chris Walker

Collaborators: Queen GodIs, Camille Quamina, Marvin George, Adam Pascall, Muhammad Mulwakil and Ras Mikey C

Music: Andrea Bocelli “The Lord’s Prayer”, Abbaye Cisterciennes “Tout Jubile, Aujourd aui”, “Santus”, with field recordings of traditional Kumina rhythms. Orisha music - vocals led by Camille Quamina , Drums by Marvin George, Sheena Richardson, Muhammad Mulwakil and Vaughn Toussaint. Text scripted from a devising process with Queen GodIs, performed by Catherine Denecy. “Time” written and performed by Camille Quamina.

Dancers: Jillia Cato, Mimi Cezanne-Stoll, Catherine Denecy (soloist), Alexis DeVance, Ladelin Garcia, Laura Levinson, Nicole Pemberton, Erica Pike, Jelae Stroude-Mitchell, Soumayah Nanji, Shanise V. Rhiney, Mara Rivera, Jonatha Sutherland, Aisha Watson and Keyasha Williams-Bailey

Partial funding support from Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and Hefty Faculty Support Fellowship

Palm Oil Rosary: ReCall (2012) is a concert dance work with collaborative elements involving movement, voice and drums, imagery, theatre and spoken word / poetry. The work challenges a structural space where African religious practices and contradictory European religious practices often exist in the same body. The tension created is the energy force for the movement vocabulary, while the subject of “guilt” shapes the spoken narrative structure, against a peripheral wave of Orisha and other African Caribbean religious music expressions.

New Waves! COMMISSION PROJECT OPEN REHEARSAL - Ananya Dance...

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 04:05:24 -0400

New Waves! COMMISSION PROJECT OPEN REHEARSAL - Ananya Dance Theatre “Moreechika”. Images by Photographer-in-Residence, Maria Nunes.

Dance Performance Highlights Harmful Impact of Oil Industry

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

By Erline Andrews for Trinidad & Tobago Mirror. Sunday, 29 July 2012.

In the mid 1960’s, a corporate partnership that included oil giant Texaco began extracting petroleum from a formerly pristine region in northeastern Ecuador. 30 years later, the environment was decimated and the health of the indigenous people who live there severely compromised. Compared to the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in its impact, the disaster is the center of ongoing litigation.

The Shell petroleum company contributes to deadly gang violence in Nigeria, distributing money to gang leaders ostensibly for “community development” and as payment for job contracts an NGO investigation found. The violence killed about 60 people including many women and children in the town of Rumuekpe between 2005 and 2008. Residents of Nigeria’s Ogoniland region face health risks including cancer because of shells operations there the UN found. And oil dollars contribute to income inequality which is linked to corruption and violent crime in many parts of the world, including Trinidad and Tobago.

Stories like these were in the minds of award winning choreographer Ananya Chatterjea and her dancers as they put together the piece Moreechika: Season of Mirage which debuted at the National Academy for the Performing Arts on Friday night. A second performance is carded for Saturday. The performance will then head to the US. The piece isn’t a direct portrayal of people’s experiences Chatterjea explains. Instead, dancers express metaphorically what the disadvantaged particularly women experience because of oil production. “I’m interested in revealing the human core of pain, struggle, and resistance but also the sufferings, says Chatterjea who holds a PhD and is a professor at the University of Minnesota. “Activists can give us statistics. As an artist, I can only tell it an abstract way and I hope to invite people to enter into that process.”

Moreechika is the third in a 4-part series being produced by Chatterjea’s Minneapolis based dance company to illustrate the impact of extracted industries. The Ananya Dance Theater has already done pieces on land and gold. The next people focus on water. People may not readily think of it as such but Chatterjea believes dance is a good avenue for Activism. Her dance theater - made up primarily of women of color - describes itself as “working at the intersection of artistic excellent and social justice.” I believe totally in the power of the Arts to reveal to speak to the deep core of human suffering and courage, not in terms of facts and figures, but in terms of metaphors that can certainly show us so much,” she says. “We have the power to move people move energies, we can push for change in the way nothing else can.” Chatterjea said audience asks can expect to see a lot of foot work which is typical of Indian dance along with moves derived from yoga and martial art chhau. At the end of the performance members of the audience will be invited on stage. The dancers are also diverse- African Hispanic Asian and European- and performance will feature live shadow puppets to represent always hungry ghosts adapted from Tibetan mythology. “They’ve died with a desire for more,” says Chatterjea. ”They remind us that that’s going to be our future unless we change something.”

Moreechika will be presented as part of the New Waves! Commission Project a local effort that brings together choreographers and answers from the region and the world to create and promote new work. It was founded by Trinidad and Tobago choreographer MakedaThomas who runs the Dance and Performance Institute. Palm Oil Rosary, a piece by Jamaican choreographer Chris Walker will also be performed on Friday and Saturday at NAPA. Tickets are $150. More information can be found on the Makeda Thomas Dance & Performance Institute Facebook page.

“A New Wave of Dance” by Ada Luke for Trinidad...

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

“A New Wave of Dance” by Ada Luke for Trinidad Guardian, Friday, 27 July 2012.

New Waves! 2012 Opening GALA Celebration at The Cloth in...

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

New Waves! 2012 Opening GALA Celebration at The Cloth in Belmont, Port of Spain. Wednesday, 18 July 2012. All photographs by Maria Nunes.

Special Thanks to Robert Young, Alice Yard, Brianna McCarthy, Olivia Fern, Michelle Isava, Clint Harewood, and Raylando Metivier for their support on this special evening. Let’s Dance!

Opening Remarks::New Waves! 2012

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Forward!

The Dance & Performance Institute’s mission is to gather, educate and inspire leaders who facilitate the development and re-imagining of dance and performance as it relates to movement, dance theatre, performance art, performance studies, the body and the world. Like the contemporary Caribbean space, it is a diasporic space. It is about engaging in meaningful, fulfilling and relevant work as dance practitioners - where we each are part of a community and the community is practice. What we are growing, is a new kind of artistic organizm, led by principles that heighten the possibilities for what can happen in the space. We recognize that how we exist and move in this space has global impact. We gather to ‘dance the dance’.

The knowledge (artistic and otherwise) produced during the Institute contributes to the value of the Institute, thus each participant works to make each share worth as much as possible. We create this space. We are free in it. It belongs to us. Let’s be clear: this is not anarchy. We each affect one another and must therefore bear that responsibility. And ultimately, the greater interest is in the protecting the space, rather than the individual. And there have been calls to do so: against misogyny, against imperialist notions about an exotic Caribbean; against proliferation of old hierarchies ie., dancers separating themselves according to technical level, dance style, class or age; or those who, although allies, hold firm to laborious -isms and schisms; or those who misunderstood it a space where all goes - the stuff of which exaggerations about free will and how radical acts are made.

One of the most radical acts is to build community. I’ve learned that New Waves! is not about achieving some stable balance. It’s about a way of handling change; how we ride the wave. And it starts with the Institute as a movement of change, of flux, of flow; of continual construction and deconstruction of the mechanisms by which we engage the space and ourselves. What we are Gesturing Towards, is Another Form of Knowledge Altogether.

We’re gesturing towards a knowledge where our history, theory and art is borne through the act of the creating this community. Community as practice. It is intentional - living in it, engaging in it, questioning it, being humbled by it - thru its complexities and simplicities, layered by the specific culture and history of Trinidad & Tobago which offers some of the most nuanced, paradoxical, and creative intersections of gender, class, race, and sexuality. Those expecting some formula will be delightfully disappointed to know that for each Institute, like every Carnival in Trinidad, all our creativities and focus is completely in the present. (However, as I recall, there have been Institutes where some of us were certainly intent on playing ole mas. Yes, certainly old traditions and innovation are presented side by side with a dramatic sense of theatre at times.) And every year, despite the challenges, we are reinvigorated, galvanized by our act of coming together to dance the dance.

Looking forward! Let’s Dance!

Makeda Thomas

Director, New Waves!

Assessing Your Archetype: Discovering Your Female Archetype in Orisha Dancing

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 19:12:00 -0400

Assessing Your Archetype: Discovering Your Female Archetype in Orisha Dancing with Artist-in-Residence, Andrea Thompson. 20 July to 1 August 2012.

New Waves! 2012 Artist in Residence, Andrea Thompson will offer a two-hour workshop, Assessing Your Archetype: Discovering Your Female Archetype in Orisha Dancing. Session will be held the week of 23 July 2012 at the Academy of Performing Arts. Email institute@makedathomas.org to register for the workshop. FREE.

”It is my hope that participants will come away with a concrete understanding of the importance and basic history of Orisha dancing, the ability to dissect the three common Female Archetypes, and an awareness of where self, self esteem, and culture that lie upon this pantheon of women’s folklore. And in addition, participants will be able to appreciate the relevance of Orisha dance in the general Latin and Caribbean culture, but more specifically in Trinidad & Tobago.”

NOTE: This is a movement and discussion workshop series. Participants are asked to always wear fitness attire, and a wide folkloric type skirt is needed. Dancing is done bare foot. Notes and materials will be provided. Participants will be asked to learn basic rhythm patterns on percussive hand instruments.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Andrea R. Thompson has woven African dance forms into her body for the last 15 years. Andrea studies, teaches, and performs Afro-Brazilian Samba, North African Belly Dance and Afro-Cuban. She has danced with “Sarava”, “AshéMoyubba ” and now dances with“Alafia”, an Afro-Cuban folkloric company. She has taught Afro-Cuban Dance at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and Howard Community College (HCC) and has presented on folkloric dance at the Congress of Research in Dance (CORD). Most recently she was an inaugural participant of New Waves Institute, a dance and culture intensive held at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. Andrea has allowed her politics of movement to take her to five different continents, fulfilling the roles of dance instructor, student, performer, observer and patron.

New Waves! 2012 WELCOME PACKET

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 22:41:06 -0400

New Waves! 2012 WELCOME PACKET:

For Participants Only.

Join us during these open, public events for New Waves! 2012....

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 21:56:00 -0400

Join us during these open, public events for New Waves! 2012. Let’s Dance!