photo by Paul B. Goode
photo by Ian Douglas
photo by Mena Burnette
photo by Paul B. Goode
photo by Paul B. Goode
photo by Paul B. Goode
photo by Mena Burnette
photo by Paul B. Goode
photo by Paul B. Goode
poor people's tv room
2017
In his novel Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe, the main character visits a friend of his in his hometown in Nigeria. His friend has become rich, and his way of sharing that wealth with the community was to build an extra living room to his house, where people could come and sit in the air conditioning and watch old Michael Jordan videos. He called it a “poor people’s tv room” and that inspired the title of this work—this idea of providing a room where someone else’s aspirations were always on a loop, a space set “alongside time,” rather than in it.
Inspired by the events of the Woman’s War of 1929 in southeastern Nigeria, the “Bring Back Our Girls Movement”in 2014 and the movement for Black Lives (BLM) in the US in 2014, this work considers how protest movements are durational acts. These acts transmit embodied knowledge through generations and across continents, even when cultural histories have been suppressed. This work explores the relationship between these durational acts and performance practice.
conceived, co-written and performed by Okwui Okpokwasili
co-written and directed with scenic and lighting design by Peter Born
original songs created by Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
movement created by Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born in collaboration with Thuli Dumakude, Okwui Okpokwasili, Katrina Reid, and Nehemoyia Young
performed by Thuli Dumakude, Okwui Okpokwasili, Katrina Reid, and Nehemoyia Young
production management by Santino Lo and Michaelangelo DeSerio
Poor People’s TV Room was produced by MAPP International Productions in association with New York Live Arts, with lead support from New York Live Arts Randjelovic/Stryker Resident Commission Artist program (RCA). The RCA received major support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Slobodan Randjelovic & Jon Stryker.
Poor People’s TV Room was commissioned by the American Dance Institute and the Walker Center for the Arts. Poor People’s TV Room was a project of Creative Capital. It received funding from The MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and from the National Endowment for the Arts. It was supported by developmental residencies at The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL; Brooklyn Creative Arts LAB (BRIC) and 92Y in New York; The Rauschenberg Residency (Robert Rauschenberg Foundation) on Captiva Island, FL; and Wesleyan University in Middlebury, CT.
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Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, January 19-21, 2017
EMPAC, Troy, February 10, 2017
New York Live Arts, New York, April 19-29, 2017
REDCAT, Los Angeles, February 8-11, 2018
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, February 23-24, 2018
ICA Boston, March 9-10, 2018
Mass MOCA, North Adams, April 7, 2018
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, April 15, 2018
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, May 9-10, 2018
On the Boards, Seattle, December 6, 2018