Thursday, October 1, 7:30 pm
Saturday, October 3, 7:30 pm
Sunday, October 4, 3:00 pm

Tickets $25, MCA members $20, Students $10
(student tickets are subject to availability)
Buy Tickets Online
or call the MCA Box Office, 312.397.4010

A visionary contemporary dance artist, Nora Chipaumire speaks to the human condition with power, authority, and urgency. Her newest project is a cross-generational collaboration with living legend Thomas Mapfumo, who will be performing with his band Blacks Unlimited in an acoustic on-stage setting. Living as exiles in an increasingly globalized world. Nora and Thomas unpack the experience of the migrant, using their impassioned voices to speak about living as Africans in an increasingly borderless world.

About the Artist
Her dancing hits you with a vengeance.  - The Phoenix

This project marks the MCA debut for both Nora Chipaumire and Thomas Mapfumo. They work in the intertwined forms of dance and music, and this is their first collaboration. They are of different generations - Nora came of age listening to Thomas's music - yet both are living in the U.S., in self-exile from Zimbabwe.

Nora Chipaumire has toured the U.S., Europe, Canada and Africa since 2005 as a solo artist. Her multimedia dance works are "transnational, unafraid, and eager to burn cultural, creative, and geographic boundaries" (Village Voice). She also dances with and serves as associate director of the renowned dance company Urban Bush Women, and has worked with a wide range of choreographers including Germaine Acogny and Reggie Wilson. She is featured in the documentary film Movement (R)evolution Africa, and the dance film Nora by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton. She is a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe's School of Law, and holds graduate degrees in dance and choreography from Mills College.

Thomas Mapfumo, known as "The Lion of Zimbabwe" for his immense popularity and for the political influence he wields through his music. He created the style of music-chimurenga, which means struggle in the Shona language-to accompany lyrics that called for the violent overthrow of his country's white minority rule. Mapfumo was sent to prison camp on charges of subversion in 1977. He arranged his release by agreeing to a special concert for his country's political leaders, but then played them only his most indignant material. Mapfumo formed his band Blacks Unlimited after Zimbabwe's 1978 independence. The band's celebration songs turned to protest - speaking out against false leaders, alcoholism, AIDS and domestic violence, among other things, while borrowing from mbira-based traditional music, reggae, R&B and African Jazz. After years of harassment, Mapfumo moved with his family to Oregon in the late 90s. Born in 1945, he continues as a creative force, making music that is graceful, defiant, and truthful.

More info about Nora Chipaumire
More info about Thomas Mapfumo

Running Time: 60 minutes

Artists Up Close

Open Doors: lions will roar...
Sunday, September 27, 11 am to 2 pm
FREE with museum admission
Museum visitors are invited to drop in to observe the artists at work in the theater on the productions' final stages. Enjoy a rare glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes just days before a show opens to the public. Native Zimbabwean Chipaumire embodies the paradoxes of self-exile in her heartfelt and ferocious new dance work. Legendary musician Thomas Mapfumo -- creator of Zimbabwe's celebrated chimurenga ("struggle") style of music -- accompanies Chipaumire for this electrifying performance.

Artist talk with Nora Chipaumire
Tuesday, September 29, 6-8pm
FREE as part of Free Tuesdays
Chipaumire introduces the film Nora and discusses how art and history interact from a personal experience: her early years in Zimbabwe after the Chimurenga Chechipiri, or second war of liberation, to present life in self-exile as an artist working in New York.

First Night
Thursday, October 1
Audience members are invited to stay for a talk with Nora Chipaumire, Thomas Mapfumo, and collaborators

Workshop
Saturday, October 3, 11a-1p
Registration $15 or $10 with performance ticket
Register Online or call the MCA Stage Box Office: 312.397.4010
Nora Chipaumire introduces persons with and without dance training to her personal movement language, leading the group through their oral histories which they then retell using the body.

Dance Films: Nora (Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, 2008, 35 minutes)
Saturday, October 3, 12pm and 2pm
FREE with museum admission
This innovative look at the life and work of Nora Chipaumire melds the genres of biopic, myth, and dance film. For this intimate portrait, filmmakers Alla Kovgan and David Hinton returned with Chipaumire to the borders of her native Zimbabwe. There, they captured her history in gorgeous and lyrical tones, melding documentary realism with poetic dance images in an effort to capture the literal and creative insipiration for Chipaumire's searing work.

Dance Films: Movement (R)evolution Africa (Joan Frosch and Alla Kovgan, 2007, 65 minutes)
Sunday, October 4, 11am and 1pm
FREE with museum admission
This survey of Africa's burgeoning international dance scene breaks from stereotyped ideas of African dance as ancient and unchanging and illuminates the world of African movement in its vital reality. Featuring interviews with Nora Chipaumire and eight other dance artists, it unearths the stories of artists as ambivalently tied to their homeland as they are eager to dispel easy notions of a shattered and broken continent.

Special Offers
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