“Her dancing hits you with a vengeance.”  – The Pheonix

Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe during the Chipurenga Chechipiri (second war of liberation), Nora Chipaumire begins her first major tour in the United States with her “love letter to Zimbabwe,” lions will roar, swans will fly, angels will wrestle heaven, rains will break: gukurahundi. A self exiled artist and Bessie Award winner, Chipaumire is known for her brave, transnational work that investigates cultural, political, economical, and technological identities of African contemporary life. Teaming up with dancer Mallory Starling and master musician and poet Thomas Mapfumo (with his band The Blacks Unlimited), lions… is a dynamic hour-long performance of live music, dance, and projected video.

The work offers to take on another Africa, one that is neither pleading nor begging, an Africa in conversation with itself, asking the difficult questions, and celebrating its achievements and humanity. This new dance work is dedicated to the visual, aural and kinesthetic equivalent of Africa’s great cities – cities full of life, contradictions, grace, defiance, vulgarity, and power – and is created by one of the most exciting, new choreographers on the scene today.

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Funding provided in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and private funders.

Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

Special support provided by Global Spotlight, Office of International Programs at the University of Minnesota.