Joelle Dietrick

Lions Will Roar...

Lions Will Roar, Swans Will Fly, Angels Will Wrestle Heaven, Rains Will Break: Gukurahundi

Performance by Nora Chipaumire and Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited.
Animations by Joelle Dietrick and Romain Tardy.
Excerpt of the animation at http://vimeo.com/8748832

Lions Will Roar, Swans Will Fly, Angels Will Wrestle Heaven, Rains Will Break: Gukurahundi is an hour-long multi-disciplinary performance featuring contemporary/African solo dance artist Nora Chipaumire (a two-time Bessie Award winner), legendary Zimbabwean musicians Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited, and artist Joelle Dietrick. Gukurahundi explores the migrant experience within and outside of Africa and examines how Africa is portrayed, or packaged to a western, globalized world. Integrating movement, live music, and projected video imagery, Gukurahundi presents a new way to see, hear, and experience Africa, especially as evolves from the point of view of artists-in-exile and investigates our complicated contemporary ideas about home and place.

Video about the project at http://www.mancc.org
Audio about the project at http://www.mancc.org/podcasts/mancc-podcast-episode-9-nora-chipaumire.html

2009-11 Performances

• Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Chicago, IL, October 1, 3-4, 2009
  http://www.mcachicago.org/performances/perf_detail.php?id=501


• World Music / CRASH Arts, Boston, MA, February 5-7, 2010
  http://www.worldmusic.org/


• Duke University’s Reynolds Industries Theatre, Durham, NC, February 26-27, 2010
  http://dukeperformances.duke.edu/node/48


• University of Minnesota’s Northrop, Minneapolis, MN, April 29, 2010
  http://northrop.umn.edu/event/nora-chipaumire


• The Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, New York, NY, May 21-22, 8 pm
  Presented by 651 Arts in association with Dance Theater Workshop
  http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org/chipaumire


• DiverseWorks, Houston, TX, May 2010 (dates TBA)


• Miami Light Project, Miami, FL, May 2010 (dates TBA)


• Clarice Smith Center, University of Maryland, College Park, February 24-25 2011
  http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/downloads/programs/nora-chipaumire-program.pdf

Many thanks to Florida State University’s Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago for giving us, and in the case of VCCA, myself, residency time for the development of this project.