nora chipaumire

is an artist who has been challenging and embracing stereotypes of Africa, the black performing body, art, and aesthetics for over 20 years. Born in 1965 in what was then known as Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe), she is a product of colonial education for black native Africans and is invested in knowledge acquisition and sharing outside of prescribed parameters. She studied law at the University of Zimbabwe and dance at Mills College in Oakland, California. chipaumire’s works include #PUNK 100% POP *NIGGA, a three-part live performance album, portrait of myself as my father (2016), RITE RIOT (2012) and Miriam (2012). She released a Radio Opera, has been featured in dance films and made her directorial debut with the short film Afro Promo #1 King Lady in 2016. Her latest work is NEHANDA, a large-scale opera. Her long-term research project nhaka, a technology-based practice and process to her artistic work, investigates the nature of black bodies and the products of their imaginations. nhaka bhuku 1 has been published in 2020 at the courtesy of Matadero Publishing House (Spain). nora chipaumire is a four-time Bessie Award winner and recipient of the 2016 Trisha Mckenzie Memorial Award for her impact on the dance community in Zimbabwe. She has been honored with awards such as the “Dance Bubble” grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2021), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), two Doris Duke Artist Awards (2015 and 2023) and a Princeton Hodder Fellowship (2014). From 2022 to 2023, she was a Fellow at Quick Center for the Arts, she is currently a Doris Duke Fellow, a Researcher in Residence at the NYU Future Imagination Collaboratory and a Mellon Artist-in-Residence at Columbia University. In autumn 2023, she taught as a guest professor at the Freie Universität Berlin.