nora chipaumire: #PUNK 100% POP *N!&GA

Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe, and based in New York City, choreographer nora chipaumire challenges and embraces stereotypes of Africa and the black performing body, art, and aesthetics.

Inspired by her formative years in Zimbabwe, #PUNK 100% POP *N!&GA is a raw and visceral live performance album that confronts and celebrates punk, pop, and rumba through the radical visions of musicians Patti Smith, Grace Jones, and Rit Nzele. chipaumire and her company of dancers and musicians raucously question how status and power are experienced and presented through the body. Featuring a stage set designed by visual artists Ari Marcopoulos and Kara Walker, the work is a continuation of chipaumire’s career-long investigation of portraiture and self-portraiture, biography, subjecthood, liberation, and independence as a black female and African.

The sessions can be performed separately, like single songs, or together as an epic song cycle, like an album. Together they paint a sonic and visual landscape, engaging voice, gesture, and sound clash installation. At the ICA chipaumire will present two sessions in each approximately two-hour performance.

Friday night: #PUNK and 100% POP

Saturday night: 100% POP and *N!&GA

Note: The audience remains standing for much of the performance. Accommodations will be made as needed.

ICA admission is included with all ICA performance tickets. Note that timed tickets are required to experience Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING. A limited number will be available for performance ticket-holders, first come, first served, in person only.

Preview the program

Accessibility

The ICA is committed to making its events accessible to all visitors. See our Accessibility page for a list of regularly available resources, including assistive-listening devices, accessible seating, and large-print programs. Need more information or a different resource, such as ASL or captioning? Contact accessibility@icaboston.org with questions and requests. (Two weeks lead time recommended.)

Production credits

Conceived and choreographed by nora chipaumire

Performed by nora chipaumire with Shamar Watt, David Gagliardi, Atiyyah Khan, and Philip White Sound, Light, Costume Concept, Text, and Script by nora chipaumire Sound Research, Construction, and Assemblage by nora chipaumire with Shamar Watt Sound Design by Philip White Technical Direction by Sean Seago (EU) and Heidi Eckwall (US) Set Design by Ari Marcopoulos, Kara Walker, and Matt Jackson Studio

Length: Each evening runs approximately two hours

About nora chipaumire

Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe, and based in New York, nora chipaumire has been challenging and embracing stereotypes of Africa and the black performing body, art, and aesthetic. She is a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe’s School of Law and holds a M.A. in Dance and M.F.A. in Choreography & Performance from Mills College. She has studied dance in Africa, Cuba, Jamaica and the U.S. and has performed internationally in France, Italy, Japan, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and many other places.

Her work includes portrait of myself as my father (2016, premiered at Peak Performances, Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair, NJ); rite riot (2013, premiered at French Institute Alliance Française’s Crossing the Line festival, FIAF); Miriam (2012, premiered at Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music Fisher Theater, Brooklyn, NY); The Last Heifer (2012, premiered at PLATFORM 2012: Parallels, Danspace Project, New York, NY), Chimurenga (2003, premiered at ODC Theater, San Francisco, CA); Lions will roar, swans will fly, angels will wrestle heaven, rains will break, gukurahundi! (2009, premiered at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL); and Dark Swan (2005, reconstructed in 2014 for Urban Bush Women at FOCUS DANCE, The Joyce Theater, New York, NY). chipaumire is currently developing a new work titled #PUNK %POP *NIGGA (2018), commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts with the support of BAM, Miami Light Project, ICA Live Art Festival (Cape Town), University of Richmond, Crossing the Line Festival/French Institute Alliance Française and company nora chipaumire.

chipaumire most recently received the 2016 Trisha Mckenzie Memorial Award for her impact on the dance community in Zimbabwe. She is also a 2016 Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant recipient and a 2015 Doris Duke Artist. She was awarded the 2007 Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University Center for the Arts and the 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts. She was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University in 2014-2015, a United States Artist Ford Fellow in 2011, a MANCC Choreographic Fellow in 2007–2008, 2009, and 2015 and she is currently a fellow at The Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) at University of Cape Town.

chipaumire is a three-time New York Dance and Performance (aka “Bessie”) Awardee: in 2014 for the revival of her solo Dark Swan set as an ensemble piece on Urban Bush Women (UBW), in 2008 for her dance-theater work, Chimurenga, and in 2007 for her body of work with UBW—where she was a featured performer for six years and Associate Artistic Director (2007–2008).

The ICA’s presentation is funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.

Commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts with the support of BAM, Miami Light Project, ICA Live Art Festival (Cape Town), University of Richmond, Quick Center for the Arts, Crossing the Line Festival/French Institute Alliance Française and Nora Chipaumire.

First Republic Bank is proud to sponsor the 2019–2020 ICA Live Performance Season.

Additional support is generously provided by Edward Berman and Kathleen McDonough and Robert Davoli and Eileen McDonagh.

Access for Boston’s Dance Community is supported by the Pratt-Hall Fund.