Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe and based in NYC, Nora Chipaumire has been challenging and embracing stereotypes of Africa and the black performing body, art, and aesthetic. She is a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe’s School of Law and holds a M.A. in Dance and M.F.A. in Choreography & Performance from Mills College. She has studied dance in Africa, Cuba, Jamaica and the U.S. and has performed her works worldwide. Chipaumire is a 2016 Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant recipient and a 2015 Doris Duke Artist. She was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University in 2014-2015, 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts recipient and 2011 United States Artist Ford Fellow. chipaumire is a three-time New York Dance and Performance (aka “Bessie”) Awardee: in 2014 for the revival of her solo Dark Swan set as an ensemble piece on Urban Bush Women (UBW), in 2008 for her dance-theater work, Chimurenga, and in 2007 for her body of work with UBW—where she was a featured performer for six years and Associate Artistic Director in 2007-2008. She was a MANCC Choreographic Fellow in 2007-2008 : 2009 and 2015 and was awarded the 2007 Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University Center for the Arts. Her work has been reviewed by the New York Times, Le Monde, Johannesburg Sunday Times, and supported by the MAP Fund, the Jerome Foundation, NYFA B.U.I.L.D., National Dance Project, NYSCA, The Joyce Theater Foundation with support from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Cultural Innovation Fund, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Chipaumire has also been featured in several dance films including Cassa Cassa (dir. Elodie Lefebvre, 2011) and nora (Dir. Alla Kogan and David Hinton, 2009). She made her directorial debut in spring 2016 with Afro Promo #1: Kinglady, commissioned by Dance for Film on Location at Montclair State University. Her current and ongoing projects include chicken farming in Burkina Faso and creating “living archives” with contemporary dancers in Harare, Zimbabwe.
