Reading and Dance Performance with Teju Cole and Nora Chipaumire
Dancer Nora Chipaumire presented “Dark Swan” and an excerpt from her Bessie Award-winning “Chimurenga” proceeded by a reading from Achebe Center Fellow Teju Cole from his new novel, Open City.
Nora Chipaumire is a choreographer, director and dancer. Since 2005, Chipaumire has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, and Africa. She is a 2008 New York Dance and Performance (aka “Bessie”) Award for her choreographic work Chimurenga; and a 2007 New York Dance and Performance Award in the performance category for her work with Urban Bush Women where she also served as Associate Artistic Director. She has been honored with the Mariam McGlone Emerging choreographer. She is featured in the documentary “Movement (R)evolution Africa (a story of an art form in four acts)” and the focus of two dance films. Chipaumire studied dance formally and informally in her native Zimbabwe, Senegal, USA, Cuba, and Jamaica. She is a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe’s School of Law and holds graduate degrees from Mills College of Oakland, CA in dance (MA) and choreography & performance (MFA).
Teju Cole was raised in Lagos, Nigeria, and came to the US at the age of seventeen. He is a professional historian of sixteenth-century Netherlandish art, and is the author of the novella “Every Day is for the Thief” and the novel “Open City.” He is also a street photographer. Teju is a Chinua Achebe Center Fellow at Bard College, and is at work on a non-fiction narrative of contemporary Lagos.
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