Saturday, August 25, 2012, 8:00 pm
Hunter Center
$15/$10 for students/10% discount for members
A Work-in-Progress Showing
Join us for a showing of Miriam, a new evening-length work (performed in the round!) written and choreographed by renowned choreographer and dancer Nora Chipaumire. This up-close and personal showing is also a rare opportunity to hear a soundscape created and performed live by Grammy-nominated composer Omar Sosa, who will only accompany live at MASS MoCA and later at BAM. Sosa's live performance will be layered on top of previously recorded sounds.
With Miriam, Nora Chipaumire creates her first character-driven work—a deeply personal dance-theater performance that looks closely at the tensions women face between public expectations and private desires, selflessness and ambition, and the perfection and sacrifice of the feminine ideal. The inspiration for Miriam springs from the cultural and political milieu of Chipaumire’s southern African girlhood, her self-exile to the U.S., and her self-discovery as an artist. Miriam also reverberates with other literary and legendary influences: the writings of Joseph Conrad and Chenjerai Hove, the life of South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba, and the Christian iconography of Mary.
Chipaumire is the recipient of a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2011 USA Ford Fellow, and has garnered two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies): 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 for six years (2003-2008) and served as associate artistic director from 2007 to 2008.
Miriam is produced by MAPP International Productions. Miriam will premiere September 2012 at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art/TBA Festival. It will also appear in September 2012 at BAM's Next Wave Festival.
CREDITS
Created and written by Nora Chipaumire
Directed by Eric Ting
Composed by Omar Sosa
Lighting design and visual environment by Olivier Clausse
Sound design by Lucas Indelicato
Costume design by Naoko Nagata
Nora Chipaumire's piece Nora.
Nora Chipaumire during her residency at the MCA in Chicago.
Miriam has received generous support from: The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; The New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; The New England Foundation for the Arts' Production Residency for Dance Program, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; The National Endowment for the Arts; The NPN Forth Fund; New Music USA's Live Music for Dance Program
Miriam is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in partnership with the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).
Miriam is also co-commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY; Les Subsistances, Lyon, France; and Clarice Smith Performing Art Center, College Park, MD.
Miriam was created during a residency provided by The Joyce Theater Foundation, New York City, with major support from the Rockefeller Foundation's NYC Cultural Innovation Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Creative and production residencies are also being provided the Experimental Music and Performing Arts Center (Troy, NY), Brooklyn Academy of Music (Brooklyn, NY), MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA), Centro per la Scena Contemporanea/CSC (Bassano del Grappa, Italy), and Les Subsistances (Lyon, France).
1040 MASS MoCA WAY NORTH ADAMS, MA 01247 413.MoCA.111 (413.662.2111) INFO@MASSMoCA.ORG
