Dance With Mama

It’s fortuitous that a performance inspired by the life and music of South African Miriam Makeba arrives now, just a month after the death of her fellow pioneering giant, Nelson Mandela. As the future president languished in prison, Makeba took African music to the global stage during the 1960s while...

By Anne Tschida

January 23, 2014

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It’s fortuitous that a performance inspired by the life and music of South African Miriam Makeba arrives now, just a month after the death of her fellow pioneering giant, Nelson Mandela. As the future president languished in prison, Makeba took African music to the global stage during the 1960s while also fighting for women’s rights and against apartheid. She became known as “Mama Africa.” Nora Chipaumire, born in Zimbabwe, based in New York, and known for her radically new interpretations of dance and performance, brings her latest show, Miriam, to Miami, in a unique copresentation from the Miami Light Project and MDC Live Arts. In her most theatrical creation yet, she delves into territory that is both personal and universal: what it’s like to be an expat African, a woman, and an ambitious performer with the desire to make a lasting imprint. In a nod to her previous time spent in Miami, the original score comes from Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa.
Jan. 23-25, 8 p.m., 2014

Anne Tschida

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