Theater artist Erwin Thomas, a member of Centrum’s core faculty for youth workshops, is currently engaged in a number of projects across the United States, as well as Africa.

He is collaborating as a writer/director’s assistant with the St. Paul Community Baptist church in their production of "The Maafa: The Struggle Continues," a production with an all-male cast of people from African descent. The production explores what it means to be both black and male in the United States in 2008, raising questions not just of race, but social identity, opportunities, and questions about the future.

At the same time, Thomas is working in collaboration with the Pure Elements dance company in Brooklyn to develop a production called "Rhythm Stories," a new work about the rich legacy of rhythm and dance within the history of Africans in America.

He has also recently just returned from Cape Town (pictured) and Port Elizabeth, in South Africa, working with the University of Washington’s CHID program as a teaching artist. There, he facilitated workhops to aid students in creatively reflecting on and processing their time spent studying, living, and learning about social systems and movements that continue to actively struggle for change.

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