Lewis Center Past Fellows

Nora Chipaumire

Nora Chipaumire headshot

About

Nora Chipaumire is a Zimbabwean-born choreographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has earned her several awards including a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2011 USA Ford Fellowship, and the 2009 AFROPOP Real Life Award for her choreography in the film, Nora. She is a three-time New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Awardee, in 2014 for Dark Swan; in 2008 for her dance-theater work, Chimurenga; and in 2007 for her body of work with Urban Bush Women, where she was a featured performer (2003-2008) and Associate Artistic Director (2007-2008). She has studied dance in many parts of the world —including Africa (Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and South Africa), Cuba, Jamaica and the U.S.— and has led significant contemporary dance and choreographic workshops in east, central and West Africa. A graduate of the University of Zimbabwe's School of Law, Chipaumire holds an M.A. in Dance and M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance from Mills College. As a Hodder Fellow, Chipaumire hopes to complete the second installment in her Diptych: "portrait of myself as my father," a work that will deepen her inquiry into the self, blackness, Africa-ness, as well deepening the minimalist African aesthetic which she champions.

Links

Nora Chipaumire receives 2014 Bessie Award for Outstanding Revival | BroadwayWorld.com

Nora Chipaumire on spectatorship | UnionDocs.org

Nora Chipaumire receives 2019 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production | Bessies.org, October 14, 2019

Video Interview