During her time in Miami Nora will be developing a new but old idea called, “self un contained”, an investigation into portraiture and self-portraiture. Focusing on the construction of identities in a instagrammed world, Nora will look at the acts of seeing, thinking, feeling, relating and communing through the lenses of ubiquitous devices (clothing, cameras and headphones). She will question with irony and energy the limits and extensibility of bodies today, and wonder: what really makes, Africans, so singular? The work will be seen in Cape Town (Feb 2017) and NYC (April & Sept 2017).
AIR at The Light Box is a Pilot Contemporary Performance Artist Residency Program funded by Knight Arts Challenge Miami focused on providing space and time for mid-career artists to research and develop new work, explore new techniques of making work, and engage our community in the process. This residency program is designed provide artists the opportunity to realize their full artistic vision in a creative and exciting environment.
Artists-in-residence will receive housing, per diem, substantial free studio space and opportunities to present their works in its various stages of development. To assist with their research, artists will have up to six hours per day in our fully equipped black box theater and rehearsal studio. Each two-week residency will have a public component, which can take the form of an artist talk, an intimate discussion, a work-in-progress performance, a master class or another means of sharing the work with the community.
About Nora Chipaumire:
Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe and based in NYC, Nora Chipaumire uses her choreography to challenge and embrace stereotypes of Africa and the black performing body.
Nora most recently received the 2016 Trisha Mckenzie Memorial Award for her impact on the dance community in Zimbabwe. She was also awarded a 2016 Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant and a 2015 Doris Duke Artist award. She was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University in 2014-2015, 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts recipient and 2011 United States Artist Ford Fellow. Nora is a three-time New York Dance and Performance (aka “Bessie”) Awardee: in 2008 for her dance-theater work, Chimurenga, in 2007 for her body of work with Urban Bush Women, and in 2014 for the revival of her solo Dark Swan. She was also a MANCC Choreographic Fellow in 2007-2008, 2009, and 2015.
Her newest work, portrait of myself as my father (2016), is commissioned by Peak Performances @ Montclair State University, co-commissioned by MDC Live Arts in partnership with Miami Light Project, Georgia Institute of Technology, 651 ARTS, Dance Center of Columbia College, and Company Nora Chipaumire. It is the companion piece to rite riot (2013), a solo rendering of The Rite of Spring, commissioned by FIAF and presented at Crossing The Line festival in New York City and Les Subsistances in France.
Her work has been reviewed by The New York Times, Le Monde, Johannesburg Sunday Times and Chicago Tribune. Nora made her debut as film director in 2016 with the short film Afro Promo #1 King Lady commissioned by Dance for Film on Location at Montclair State University.
About The Knight Foundation:
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.
