Afro Urban Society x Dance Mission present
Theatre in Video: Mixtape of the Dead & Gone #1- Egwu Ahamefula and
Nigeria Trip Report-back & Q & A with Gbedu Town Radio #510ToDa234
Sat March 11, 2023 | 7:30-9:30pm
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th Street, San Francisco
For accessibility contact: info@afrourbansociety.com
Tickets are on a $0-$100 sliding scale. Your $ supports the continuous development of this project. Your generous contribution is greatly appreciated.
A one-night only Theatre in Video showing of ‘Mixtape of the Dead & Gone #1- egwu ọnwụ Ahamefula’, a shit-just-got-real Afro-dance-theater piece following Ahamefula moments after her death, in a tussle with Asa-#7, a Messenger called from ‘Onye Ozi’ Ancestor app, sent to collect them. This piece was initially staged and performed in June 2022 at CounterPulse. If you missed it then, you’ll want to make sure you’re there this time! If you’ve seen it before, then you know you want to see it again!
by Robbie Sweeney
After the showing, there will be a Q & A moderated by Michael French, with the creator/director Nkeiruka Oruche and some of the cast members to learn more about the process of creating the stage production, a report-back on their cultural exchange trip to Nigeria following the June 2022 performance, and what future plans lie ahead. You’ll also be invited into some interactive activities with song, movement and practices surrounding grief.
‘egwu ọnwụ Ahamefula’ is the first stage in the ‘Egwu Onwu: Mixtape for the Dead’ (MDG) series as part of the ‘Obi gbawara’m//My Heart Shattered or What happens after I die?’ (OGB) project. Created and facilitated by multimedium cultural artist and producer Nkeiruka Oruche, OGB is a multimedia performance, & cultural reclamation project reactivating the practice of death and grief performance from the Igbo Ọdịnanị & Ọmenala tradition. Drawing from pre-colonial Igbo traditional forms, as a point of departure, MDG will recreate & reimagine grief songs, dances, and poems remixed with Pan Afro-urban forms to explore the questions How do we hold pain, grief & joy for ourselves & as a community? How do we define & self-determine our liberatory practices? And how do we remember who we are in societies designed to make us forget?
This event is presented in partnership with Afro Urban Society, Dance Mission, Priority Africa Network, and World Arts West.
‘Obi gbawara’m//My Heart Shattered or What happens after I die?’ is supported in part by Afro Urban Society; Black Cultural Zone; the City of Oakland; Alliance for California Traditional Arts through the Sankofa Initiative of the San Francisco Arts Commission; the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Zellerbach Family Foundation; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; The East Bay Community Foundation East Bay Fund for Artists; California Arts Council; CounterPulse; CA$H | Theatre, a grants program of Theatre Bay Area; and individual supporters