The New Waves! Institute was established in 2011 and has since gathered 200 dance artists, teachers, and scholars in the Caribbean. Each year, participants, staff and a renowned faculty of international artists form a supportive and inspiring community that has created a unique space for dialogue, networking, experimentation and collaboration. 
New Waves! 2015 - The 5th New Waves! Institute will take place from 22 July to 1 August 2015 in Trinidad & Tobago. New Waves! draws an outstanding faculty of international dance artists and scholars each year. Faculty for New Waves! 2015 will include choreographer and dancer, Makeda Thomas (Trinidad/Contemporary Dance), National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica choreographer and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of dance, Christopher Walker (Jamaica/Caribbean Dance), former Dance Theater of Harlem company member and founder of Exadans, Jean-Aurel Maurice (Saint Martin/Haiti/Haitian Folkloric Dance and Afro-Haitian) and the Folk Workshop series with Ade Ola (Trinidad/Ori Bata) and Kieron Sargeant (Trinidad/Folk Dance). Ananya Chatterjea returns to lead People Powered Dances of Transformation, a workshop series in Contemporary Indian Dance. Additional faculty will be listed as confirmed.

Participants of New Waves! are an international group of dancers, teachers, scholars and supporters. New Waves! has included artists, photographers, poets, actors, architects, authors, professors, critics, arts presenters, designers, filmmakers, journalists, musicians, philosophers, theater directors, and writers. 

Programs include master classes, workshops, talks, symposiums, paper presentations, and performances.  

TUITION & FEES: $1500 USD for International participants | $1000 for Caribbean-based participants. Includes registration for all classes, events, accommodation in shared artist housing, and all local transportation. Meals are not included.  Financial assistance is available. 
Applications for New Waves! are accepted ONLINE.
New Waves! 2015 Application & Guidelines
HOW TO APPLY 
To complete the ONLINE APPLICATION, you’ll be required to upload a recent CV (curriculum vitae) and MAKE A DEPOSIT via PayPal. Applications are due 3 April 2015. The Institute does not require an audition for New Waves!
New Waves! 2015 - Applications and Guidelines please click below 
https://secure.jotform.co/form/43084876757874

CALL FOR PROPOSALS! NEW WAVES! 2015 DANCING WHILE BLACK PERFORMANCE LAB. 

Through a new partnership with Dancing While Black, the New Waves! Commission Project will present work by contemporary choreographers and performance artists of the Caribbean and its Diaspora. Dancing While Black is a U.S. based artist-led initiative of Angela’s Pulse that supports the diverse work of Black dance artists by cultivating platforms for process, performance, dialogue and documentation. On Friday, 31 July 2015 at Big Black Box in Port of Spain, New Waves! will create an experimental multi-performance environment featuring work by New Waves! faculty, participants and special invited guests. As part of The Cloth's “The Next 30” 30th Anniversary celebrations, iconic Caribbean fashion designer Robert Young will also present experimental pieces from the #inaboxtryingtogetoutofapattern collection. 

New Waves! 2015 invites proposals from choreographers, dancers and performance artists for the Dancing While Black Performance Lab.  Co-curated by New Waves! Director, Makeda Thomas and Paloma McGregor, Director of Dancing While Black, this experimental, multi-performance, interdisciplinary environment will feature dance and performances in the yard of and on stage at Port of Spain’s Big Black Box.

The 2015 New Waves! Dancing While Black Performance Lab is a manifestation of the New Waves! Commission Project, which has offered a presenting platform for dance artists in the Caribbean since 2012. We welcome proposals from dance and performance artists working in the Caribbean and those throughout its diaspora whose work is grounded in Caribbean aesthetics. In a riff off “Dance a yard before yuh dance abroad”, we will also explore how Caribbean dance artists create and perform work in the international landscape and how a new generation of cultural producers is transforming the ways the region is imagined and represented.

Performance themes could include:
Migration 
The Body as Home
Spaces, Objects, The Body as containers of memory
Hybridity, Authenticity & Otherness
Water, land and spirit
What is Black? Proximity to Blackness
Identity and community making
Gender and sexuality
Colonialism, nationalism, citizenship and commodification
Caribbean dance and mediated technologies
Proposals should be no more than 2 pages, single spaced, 12 pt. font and include:
Statement of how your work connects with theme(s) for this year’s Performance Lab.
Explanation of how your practice has engaged with site and space, including ways you envision that practice living in a multi-performance setting during New Waves!
A link to a work sample - 5 minutes or less - that demonstrates your aesthetic leanings, with a 150-word or less statement about how the work is connected to your proposal.
Due Date for Proposals: February 20, 2015
Confirmations: February 27, 2015
Submit a proposal to: dancingwhileblack@gmail.com
Questions to: institute@makedathomas.org

Additional Information
The participant fee for the DANCING WHILE BLACK PERFORMANCE LAB is $500 USD, which covers production, all local transportation and offers access to all New Waves! programs and course offerings. The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, 29 July - Artists Arrive/New Waves! Institute
Thursday, 30 July - New Waves! Institute/Performance LAB Technical Rehearsal
Friday, 31 July - New Waves! Institute/Dancing While Black PERFORMANCE
Saturday, 1 August - Emancipation Day
Sunday, 2 August - Artists/New Waves! Institute departs

1 August is Emancipation Day in Trinidad, with dance, drumming and a street procession through downtown Port of Spain to the Emancipation Village in Queens Park Savannah. The entire New Waves! community is invited to participate in this joyous New Waves! closing tradition. 

Feel free to contact us via email at newwavesinstitute@gmail.com with questions regarding the application process.

'Let's Dance!'