REDCAT Presents Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born: “adaku, part 1: the road opens”

From May 25 to 27, 2023, Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), presents adaku, part 1: the road opens, a new, cross-disciplinary performance from Brooklyn-based performer, choreographer, and writer Okwui Okpokwasili and director, visual artist, and sound designer Peter Born.

In this first chapter of a larger speculative mythology, a precolonial African village is at the cusp of a major upheaval. The community is entangled in an argument that could shape the future of all of their lives. This collective reckoning explores the fraught relationship between ancestors, future generations, and the role of ritual. A sonic and visual landscape of reflective textures, contouring shadows, and thrumming facilitates an intimate exchange between performers and the audience.

Okwui Okpokwasili is a Brooklyn based performer, choreographer and writer creating multidisciplinary performance pieces. The child of immigrants from Nigeria, Okpokwasili was born and raised in the Bronx, and the histories of these places and the girls and women who inhabit them feature prominently in much of her work. Her highly experimental productions include “Bessie” Award winning Pent-Up: A Revenge Dance, “Bessie” Award winning Bronx Gothic, Poor People’s TV Room, When I Return Who Will Receive Me, and Adaku’s Revolt. She has worked with film and theater directors Carrie Mae Weems, Ralph Lemon, Arthur Jafa, Terence Nance, Josephine Decker, Charlotte Brathwaite, Jim Findlay, Peter Born, and more.

Peter Born works as a director, composer and designer of performance and installation, often in collaboration with Okwui Okpokwasili, with whom he has created the installation repose without rest without end in Trondheim (2021), Swallow the Moon at Jacob’s Pillow (2021), Poor People’s TV Room (SOLO) installation at the New Museum and the Hammer Museum (2021), Sitting on a Man’s Head (2019) at Danspace Project, At the Anterior Edge (2018) with the Barnard Dance Department, when I return, who will receive me (2016), Bronx Gothic (2013), and pent-up:  a revenge dance (2009), as well as an album they produced together “day pulls down the sky” (2019).

Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born: adaku, part 1: the road opens is at REDCAT May 25-27 at 8:30 pm each evening. Tickets are $25 for General admission, $20 for REDCAT members and students, and $13 for CalArts students, faculty and staff.

Tickets can be purchased here.