Performance: "Fresh Water": Makeda Thomas

Makeda Thomas

"Why didn't you come earlier if you wanted to know about me?

"I'm in a watery state, caught in the midst.

"I don't know if I'm coming or going, let alone able to tell you about me.

"If you wanted to know about me, you should have come earlier."

Galvanize 2006 welcomes guest artist Makeda Thomas, dancer and choreographer, whose new work "Fresh Water" will be premiered on Saturday 7 October, 2006, at CCA7.

Bio: Makeda Thomas creates new dance works through cross-disciplinary collaboration with artists around the world. Her work is a fresh, rich use of contemporary modern and traditional dance with a platform that gives equal importance to the stage, workshop performances, and multimedia projects for dance-theatre experimentation. She is the artistic director of Makeda Thomas/Dance Projects (founded in 2003), which has presented work at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cine Teatro Africa in Maputo, and Links Hall in Chicago, among other places. In 2004, she was named resident choreographer of Companhia Nacional De Canto e Danca of Mozambique. For more information, visit her website Roots and Wings Movement.

"Fresh Water" (2006) will be danced by Makeda Thomas with video by Elspeth Duncan and music by Nantambu Drummers. Features the music of Ella Andall, Bob Marley, and Jimmy Cliff. The programme also includes a performance of "A Sense of Place" (2005), danced by Shani Collins, Khaleah London, and Sonja Dumas. With music by Zen One and video by Makeda Thomas. The event will be introduced by Hazel Franco, and there will be a post-performance discussion with the artists, moderated by Dionne Griffith.

"Fresh Water" takes its title from the Trinidadian term for someone who talks, dresses, or acts American without having gone overseas (crossing salt water). The term also describes someone who may have been overseas, but may be reminded they are still Caribbean. The work was created in the midst of the choreographer's return home after twenty years living abroad. "Fresh Water" is a deeply personal work, giving voice to a unique cultural experience, and demonstrating why "fresh water" is also the one resource humans depend on to survive.

Fresh Water will be held on Saturday 7 October, 2006, at 7.00 pm, in the InterAmericas Space at CCA7.