Interview with Makeda Thomas
Dancer, Choreographer and Artistic Director, Makeda Thomas creates new dance works through collaboration with artists around the world. Makeda Thomas is from Trinidad & Tobago and has presented work at Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall, Dance Theater Workshop, and Symphony Space in New York City, Brooklyn Academy of Music, BRIC Arts|Media|Brooklyn, the Chicago Women’s Performance Arts Festival, Maputo’s Teatro Africa, Port of Spain’s Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Queen’s Hall, Zimbabwe’s 7 Arts Centre, Seattle’s Broadway Performance Hall, Southern Theater in Minneapolis, Teatro de la Ciudad in Mexico, and as a Cultural Envoy for the U.S. Department of State. Her choreography has been commissioned by the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, 651 ARTS Black Dance: Tradition & Transformation and received awards from Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the United States Embassy, Puffin Foundation, NYS Council on the Arts, Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Arts International, Yellowfox, and the National AIDS Council of Moçambique.
- What does the Caribbean mean to you?
The Caribbean means home. It is my family, the landscape, the smells, the tastes, sounds, memories. It is a rhythm, a sense of humour, a way of thought, it is the specific cultural history that make for a unique set of possibilities, relationships and dynamics. It is within me, moves with me. I can leave and take parts of it with me as I move through the world. It changes, it grows, it gets smaller, it remains the same… - What if anything is the significance of location – what role does location play in your understanding and experience of the Caribbean?
Location can contextualize the kind of Caribbean I experience – Brooklyn Caribbean or London Caribbean or Port of Spain Caribbean. Each experience is marked by particular histories and yet is linked by the way people move through life. Engaging my attention to this geography, has taught me much as a dance artist, as a choreographer – about power, politics, and process. And it was from this attention, that FreshWater was created. - Can you relate a story from your past that seems to describe your experience of “Caribbeanness”?
My mother began teaching me to cook when I was about 9 years old. It was through these cooking lessons with my mother that I remained connected to home. She would tell me stories of her mother, my grandmother who passed away from breast cancer when my mother was 9 years old. The stories, the back door flung open to let in the warm summer breeze and light, the smell of burning garlic for the curry, WLIB bringing ‘local’ news and music from home, the secrets exchanged quickly in gibberidge, the laughter, the sharing of the food – this is home.
