Okwui Okpokwasili
Bronx Gothic
© Bronx Gothic, Okwui Okpokwasili © Marion Vogel ©
© Bronx Gothic, Okwui Okpokwasili © Marion Vogel ©
Creation and choreography, Okwui Okpokwasili
Performance, Wanjiru Kamuyu
Staging and stage design, Peter Born
Music, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peter Born
Produced by Michaelangelo DeSerio
Delegated production Sweat Variant
Produced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts
Coproduced by Tanzquartier Wien
Co-directed by La Commune CDN d’Aubervilliers; Festival d’Automne à Paris
Suppport from Centre Pompidou, CND Centre national de la danse, Théâtre National de Chaillot
Special thanks to Veronica Okeke
In Bronx Gothic, the visual artist, choreographer and writer, Okwui Okpokwasili’s piece centres upon the fictional account of a young girl’s memories. Using a mixture of dance and readings, this solo invites audiences to experience the construction of an intimate testimony.
Onstage, we are presented with a woman, alone, in a box-like décor consisting of closed curtains, accompanied by lighting and scenography which generates a sense of proximity. By reading the notes that they might have passed between them, and taking on their different voices, the woman recounts the story of a young girl, aged eleven years-old, in addition to that of one of her friends. This process of reading aloud is the mechanism by which Okwui Okpokwasili brings to the stage the memories of this period in their lives: their sexual awakening, in the 1980’s, in the Bronx, New York. Drawing upon a mixture of theatre, choreography and installation, Bronx Gothic is a monologue which puts the intimacy – that of a woman, and a body - on centre-stage. Created in 2014 and performed by Okwui Okpokwasili until 2019, the piece is presented at the Festival d’Automne in its new version. The dancer, Wanjiru Kamuyu now performs the work, in a staging which goes one step further in the questions it raises about the construction of a shared life history experience.
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These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia and Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.