Sonja Dumas '86
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Sonja Dumas '86
Actor, Arts Administrator, Arts Educator, Arts Supporter, Choreographer, Contemporary Caribbean Cultural Analyst, Curator, Dancer, Director, Filmmaker, Manager, Performance Artist, Producer, Writer
Me in 50 words or less:
I’m a multi-hyphenate arts practitioner and theorist, specializing in Caribbean culture. My main areas of concentration are dance, film and children’s museums.
Pronouns:
She/her/hers
Department: Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Certificate(s): African American Studies, Dance, Theater
Student Group(s): Expressions - dance company
Bio
Sonja Dumas is an arts consultant, performer, choreographer, teacher, filmmaker and writer. She is a founder and co-director of COCO Dance Festival, the largest contemporary dance festival in the English-speaking Caribbean, as well as the founder and artistic director of her dance company, Continuum Dance Project.
An award-winning filmmaker, Sonja has written, directed and produced several films that speak to the Caribbean experience. Her films include “Julia and Joyce: Two Stories of Two Dance Pioneers”, “Tickle Me Rich”, “Avocado and Zaboca”, a live action/animation film for very young children, and a food preparation show called “Sonja Doesn’t Cook”.
Mostly recently, she founded Zum-Zum Museum, an interactive children’s museum highlighting various aspects of Caribbean heritage.
Artist Statement
I locate my work in the contemporary aesthetic of the Caribbean, and try to build new ideas from old - even ancient - ones in my part of the world. Experimentation is of great importance to my own process. I dub my Trinidad and Tobago-based dance company, Continuum Dance Project, a laboratory to explore Caribbean contemporary movement. My choreographic works include “Immortal” which investigates the female obsession with beauty, “The Strange Tale of an Island Shade” (http://m.guardian.co.tt/arts/2013-07-27/dance-project-mind-and-eyes) which looks at race, class, and gender prejudice in Trinidad and Tobago and “The Museum of Difficult Women”, (http://www.guardian.co.tt/arts/2014-12-13/difficult-women-take-stage-fierceness-purpose) which looks at both trials and triumphs of famous and unsung heroines of the Caribbean. All of the works fuse history, society and performance practice together in a contemporary context.
This need to investigate and reassemble the fragments of our history and to forge our contemporary space also takes me to film, which helps me to explore cross-disciplinary ways of forming new ideas from old ones. Indeed, I often say that I ‘choreograph’ films. "Life and Death", a experimental film on the sublimation of water to plastic, is the latest 'choreographed' film. The entire cast is composed of Continuum dancers.
Featured Project(s) and Video(s)
I’d like to share my expertise with:
Alumni
Students
I would like to:
Speak on a panel
Conduct a workshop
Share advice via phone or coffee chat
Offer Pro Bono Services