#4336: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
Brooklyn-based writer, performer, and choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili creates multi-disciplinary productions that are highly experimental in form and brings together elements of dance, theater, and the visual arts. These performance pieces, created with her long term artistic collaborator (and husband), designer and director Peter Born, seek to amplify the shared psychic space the audience and performer inhabit, and, through centering the African/African-American feminine, to illuminate universal human conditions.
They’re both on the show to talk to John Schaefer about Okwui’s debut album, day pulls down the sky, and their durational performance installation Sitting on a Man’s Head, which explores the Southeast Nigerian practice among women called “sitting on a man’s head” in which women came together, directed their voices, and shared grievances to government officials in an effort to effect change.
Okwui Okpokwasili will be presenting her latest performance installation, Sitting on a Man's Head, at Danspace Project in February and March as part of Platform 2020: Utterances from the Chorus. She has co-curated this year's Platform with Danspaces’ Executive Director and Chief Curator Judy Hussie-Taylor. Featuring multiple artists, Utterances from the Chorus questions how the voice and the body can be sites of resistance and transformation, and what is possible through shared practice and collective song.
Plus, hear "hocket" music by Meredith Monk and Meara O'Reilly. What the heck is hocket you ask? A very old-school rhythmic technique of alternating between parts, single notes, or groups of notes rapidly to create a continuous melodic flow. Think of ping pong, or the opening to Mr. Sandman. It's hard to explain but you'll get what we mean when you hear Monk and O'Reilly's hock-tastic hocketing. –Rosa Gollan
Program #4336: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born (First aired 3/5/2020)
ARTIST: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
WORK: day pulls down the sky [1:51]
RECORDING: day pulls down the sky
SOURCE: belladonnaseries.org/day-pulls-down-the-sky
INFO: danspaceproject.org
ARTIST: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
WORK: sam's song [5:06]
RECORDING: day pulls down the sky
SOURCE: Self-released
INFO: danspaceproject.org/
ARTIST: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
WORK: get ahold [4:04]
RECORDING: day pulls down the sky
SOURCE: Self-released
INFO: danspaceproject.org/
ARTIST: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
WORK: binding song [3:57]
RECORDING: day pulls down the sky
SOURCE: Self-released
INFO: danspaceproject.org/
ARTIST: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
WORK: follow me [6:59]
RECORDING: day pulls down the sky
SOURCE: Self-released
INFO: danspaceproject.org/
ARTIST: Meara O'Reilly
WORK: Hocket for Two Voices - No. 1 [:59]
RECORDING: Hockets for Two Voices EP
SOURCE: Cantaloupe
INFO: mearaoreilly.bandcamp.com/releases
ARTIST: Meredith Monk and Robert Een
WORK: Facing North - Keeping Warm [4:22]
RECORDING: Facing North
SOURCE: ECM New Series
INFO: ecmrecords.com
ARTIST: Meara O'Reilly
WORK: Hocket for Two Voices - No. 3 [1:36]
RECORDING: Hockets for Two Voices EP
SOURCE: Cantaloupe
INFO: mearaoreilly.bandcamp.com/releases
ARTIST: Aka Pygmies
WORK: Mohunga [:55]
RECORDING: African Rhythms
SOURCE: Warner Classics
INFO: Find on Amazon
