Pedagogical Activities
WORKSHOP
Nhaka: Art Making, the Animist Body, and Radical Black African Presences
WITH nora chipaumire and Tatenda Chabarwa
International artist in the spotlight at the 10th MITsp, choreographer and performer nora chipaumire is holding a workshop for artists and researchers in the arts of the stage and the body alongside artist Tatenda Chabarwa. Nhaka (‘inheritance’ or ‘legacy’ in Shona, a Bantu language) is a decolonial animist practice and theory that the Zimbabwean artist has been cultivating for over a decade.
The work and philosophy owe their genealogy to Shona culture and spiritual practices. nora has been decoding, recoding and creating strategies on how to discipline and construct the physical body, in the hope of developing an organism capable of reflecting and producing gestures that broaden the understanding of the human and the organism’s relationship with the natural and spiritual world.
By referring to Nhaka and applying it, participants are introduced to physical practice – to sound, gesture, space, spirit-text and language – and invited to reflect on race and colonial history. But above all, they are invited to question the importance of making art despite everything.
The idea is to create a laboratory for creative and critical thinking, in which it is possible to research the nature of black bodies and challenge the legacies of colonialism that distribute the right to life unequally. Participants can expect a vibrant exchange that dialogues with individual ideas, intellectual experiences and artistic projects.
WHEN AND WHERE
10th March, Monday, from 10am to 2pm
Centro de Referência da Dança | Free
Registration via form until 8 March
ABOUT
nora chipaumire was born in 1965 in what was then known as Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe). The artist is the product of colonial education for indigenous black Africans, known as ‘Group B schools’. She studied law at the University of Zimbabwe and dance at Mills College in Oakland, California, but as the acquisition of African knowledge is not accompanied by formal diplomas, it is impossible to quantify what her body carries. chipaumire recognises this knowledge, beyond the Western forms that have been imprinted on her. She is a four-time Bessie Award winner and received the Trisha Mckenzie Memorial Award in 2016 for her impact on Zimbabwe’s dance community.
Tatenda Chabarwa is a performance artist, dancer, choreographer and musician born and raised in Zimbabwe. He worked as a performer with Tumbuka Dance Company in his home country between 2015 and 2016, and currently collaborates with Dunia Dance Theatre in Brussels and nora chipaumire inc, as well as developing his own solo projects. A graduate of the Dance Trust of Zimbabwe, he has presented choreographic works at festivals such as Windhoek International Dance Festival, Urban Arts Festival, Mafuwe International Dance Festival, The Arts Gathering and Pan-African Creative Exchange South Africa. In 2024, he was selected as one of the beneficiaries of the DanceWeb programme in Austria.
