MIRIAM
Choreographer and dancer Nora Chipaumire used her research and writing residency at EMPAC to develop her first character-driven work (in collaboration with Okwui Okpokwasili). MIRIAM is a deeply personal dance-theater performance that looks closely at the tensions women face between public expectations and private desires; between selflessness and ambition; and between the perfection and sacrifice of the feminine ideal. The inspiration for the work springs from the cultural and political milieu of Chipaumire’s southern African girlhood, her self-exile to the US, and her self-discovery as an artist.
Born in Zimbabwe and based in New York City, Chipaumire has studied dance in many parts of the world including Africa (Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and South Africa), Cuba, Jamaica, and the US. She was a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts recipient and 2011 United States Artist Ford Fellow; and a two-time New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) awardee.
October 5, 2012
MIRIAM was a production of MAPP International Productions, co-commissioned by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in partnership with EMPAC and National Performance Network. MIRIAM was also co-commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY; Les Subsistances, Lyon, France; and Clarice Smith Performing Art Center, College Park, MD.
