Aba A Luke

Con­tem­po­rary dance takes cen­tre stage at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain, this evening and to­mor­row evening as Make­da Thomas, dancer, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and artis­tic di­rec­tor of the Make­da Thomas Dance and Per­for­mance In­sti­tute, presents two new works, Moreechi­ka and Palm Oil Rosary Re­Call. The Dance and Per­for­mance In­sti­tute opened in 2010 and is grow­ing in­to an in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty of dance and per­for­mance artistes and a fo­rum for cul­tur­al and so­cial ex­change. It's al­so an um­brel­la for a se­ries of pro­grammes on con­tem­po­rary dance and per­for­mance. Thomas says Moreechi­ka, by Ananya Dance The­atre, and Palm Oil Rosary: Re­Call, by Chris Walk­er, were com­mis­sioned for her New Waves Com­mis­sion Project.

"I cu­rat­ed these works be­cause each fore­grounds em­bod­ied knowl­edge and re­flects an artist's long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with dance artistes here in T&T, through the Dance & Per­for­mance In­sti­tute. The Lo­cal Dance Com­mis­sion Pro­gramme 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 Pro­gramme (IC­CP) fur­ther po­si­tions T&T 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." Moreechi­ka, Thomas says, ex­plores the ef­fect that oil-drilling projects have on glob­al com­mu­ni­ties of colour and por­trays how women from these com­mu­ni­ties re­sist and sur­vive sys­temic and hi­er­ar­chi­cal vi­o­lences as­so­ci­at­ed with these projects. It is the third per­for­mance in a four-year an­ti-vi­o­lence artis­tic ini­tia­tive that has been re­search­ing ef­forts among women from glob­al com­mu­ni­ties of colour to re­sist "the vi­o­lent and cap­i­tal­ist mis­use of land, gold, oil, and wa­ter."

The pro­duc­tion was cre­at­ed by Ananya Dance The­atre, a ten-mem­ber com­pa­ny of women artistes, pri­mar­i­ly of colour, who are con­cerned with so­cial jus­tice. Palm Oil Rosary Re­Call is the work of Ja­maican dancer and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Chris Walk­er and is his sec­ond ver­sion of the pro­duc­tion. The pre­sen­ta­tion will in­clude dance, move­ment, voice, drums, the­atre and spo­ken word po­et­ry, and will fea­ture mu­sic by An­drea Bo­cel­li and Ab­baye Cis­ter­ci­ennes with tra­di­tion­al Ku­mi­na rhythms and text by the dancers. Walk­er is al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing with lo­cal artists Muham­mad Muwak­il, Mar­vin George, Camille Quam­i­na, and Sheena Richard­son. Walk­er said in an in­ter­view he feels ho­n­oured to have been con­sid­ered by Thomas to present his pro­duc­tion in T&T. "I was lucky to have been se­lect­ed by Make­da as one of those per­sons whose work she is in­spired by or whose work she feels is mov­ing in the di­rec­tion that she sees dance go­ing, in terms of cre­at­ing a holis­tic dance ex­pe­ri­ence for par­tic­i­pants." Walk­er pre­sent­ed Palm Oil Rosary in Trinidad last year.

"It was just a work­shop piece. It was about grow­ing up Catholic in Ja­maica, while at the same time en­gag­ing the African re­li­gious spaces. Church was where I went as the week­end ac­tiv­i­ty, but when chal­lenges pre­sent­ed them­selves, I al­ways found my­self in the African re­li­gious spaces," he said, high­light­ing that he spent his life con­tend­ing with this du­al­i­ty, ask­ing ques­tions about what it meant and the phys­i­cal­i­ty of it. Af­ter an at­tack on his life a few years ago, Walk­er said he felt he was go­ing to die and found him­self think­ing about the force that made him live. As a re­sult he felt the need to ex­plore this du­al­i­ty in move­ment. He said dur­ing last year's pre­sen­ta­tion, male mem­bers of his au­di­ence were moved to tears and af­ter the show they came to him and ex­plained that they were touched by the ex­pres­sions of move­ment por­trayed. "We were able to have a con­ver­sa­tion about it and that's al­so im­por­tant to me.

When we cre­ate art, of­ten­times it serves the com­mu­ni­ty in the know. Very few peo­ple who un­der­stand the art that is tak­ing place can re­al­ly con­nect to it, so to reach a point of con­ver­sa­tion and to di­a­logue about what we are see­ing and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing-that's very good," he said. Thomas says she is moved that these works are re­ceiv­ing their world pre­mieres in Trinidad. "It means that dance in Trinidad con­tin­ues to have glob­al sig­nif­i­cance and im­pact, as it has through lives and work of Beryl McBurnie, Pearl Primus and Ge­of­frey Hold­er. But it al­so means that we're cre­at­ing a new lega­cy, a new line of flight where the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what it means to cre­ate art are ex­plod­ed," Thomas said.

More in­fo

Both shows be­gin at 8 pm at the Dance Stu­dio at NA­PA. Tick­ets are $150 and are avail­able on­line at www.make­dath­omas.org/tick­ets