Makeda Thomas, an award-winning dancer and choreographer, started the Dance & Performance Institute because, she told the Guardian in 2012, she saw a "vibrant conversation around visual arts, writing, and film. But dance was not part of that conversation".
Celebrating its fifth anniversary this month, the institute has become one of the most important facilitators of conversation between dancers in T&T, between local and foreign dancers, and between dancers and other artists and creative thinkers.
The institute's first initiative was its Artist in Residence programme. Thomas put up the programme's guests at her home. Since the start, 30 dancers and scholars from around the world have participated.
The artists in residence are given freedom and flexibility once their topic of research contributes to the understanding of dance in T&T. Topics have included "the intersections of dance and architecture", "hip hop dance in the Caribbean", and "contemporary dance in the Caribbean".
The New Waves Institute, started in 2011, brings international and local dancers together for classes, workshops and performances. Among the performances are pieces from the institute's Local Dance Commission Programme and its International Choreographer's Commissioning Programme.
"I'll ... never forget that first day of the first New Waves in 2011, as I looked around the room full of incredible international dance colleagues and the generous participants who made the realisation of New Waves possible through their presence," said Thomas, as she reflected on the past five years.
The institute aims to produce work that pushes social conversation. Trinidadian choreographer Sonja Dumas's contemporary work Strange Tale of an Island Shade was chosen for the Local Dance Commission in 2013. It used dance, song and projected text to explore issues of race, shade and class in T&T.
The previous year the International Choreographer Commissioning Programme featured Indian-American Ananya Chatterjea, whose work Moreechika looked at how oil exploration and the greed of oil companies were harming poor communities in developing countries and how some members of these communities were fighting back.
The institute is given dance and rehearsal space at UTT's Napa. In exchange, full scholarships are granted to UTT dance students to participate in the institute. This year New Waves will hold a scholarship audition for dancers 18-25 on March 14 at Napa.
This, its fifth year, is a time of transition for the institute. The Artist in Residence programme will be suspended for two years while the institute goes ahead with plans for a permanent centre that includes "living space for artists in residence, dance studios, and performance space".
The New Waves programme is also set to become biennial but will take place this year–from July 22 to August 1–before taking the following year off.
"Biennial frequency offers the time and space necessary to make each iteration of New Waves truly amazing–to cultivate meaningful partnerships, raise funds, and develop our programming," the institute explains on its Web site.
The commissioned projects this year will come out of collaboration with Dancing While Black, a New York-based initiative to gives black dancers and choreographers opportunities to develop and present work. The collaboration will see the development of work by Caribbean dance artists.
The Carnival Performance Institute is usually held during the T&T Carnival season and incorporates Carnival art into a series of workshops, courses and discussions. However, this year the Carnival Performance Institute will take place in May.
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