Okwui Okpokwasili2018

Okwui Okpokwasili is a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, actor, writer, and luminous stage presence with the talent to hold and unsettle audiences. Finding beauty and strength in a ‘broken body,’ she shimmers, spasms, slams the air, repeats physical gestures, deploys multiple generations of performers, and is – always – alive to the possibilities of energetic interchange between performer and audience. What happens? Spectacular intimacy. Viewing the body as a site of protest, her generous, socially engaged work draws on history (The Nigerian Women’s War of 1929; the Boko Haram kidnappings of more than 300 girls) and literature (Amos Tutuola, Octavia Butler…) A Bessie Award winner, she has collaborated and performed with Herb Alpert Award winners Ralph Lemon and Nora Chipaumire, and is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.

 
""How to contend with the multiple conditions that are always present in one body? And as that body collides with the complexity of the world, what is the resulting charge?""