Moving Borders in Dublin
25 March 2025On 3-4 June at Dance Ireland, Dublin, Aerowaves will announce the results of research conducted over 2 years as part of Moving Borders, a cooperation project co-funded by the European Union. With the support of the Arts Council of Ireland, the two day event will consist of workshops, talks and a presentation of the publication which is open to the professional and the non-professional dance community.
Moving Borders, a EU co-funded cooperation project
‘Moving Borders –approaches to dance from the Ukrainian diaspora across Europe’, is a project led by Aerowaves which brings together the museum Arte Sella (IT), La Briqueterie CDCN (FR) and Tanec Praha (CZ), and is supported by the Creative Europe programme of the EU. Through this cooperation project we have been exploring how three female dance artists from Ukraine are informing approaches to welcoming and engaging refugees through dance, and in the development of inclusive and cohesive practices across Europe.
Aerowaves together with Arte Sella, La Briqueterie CDCN and Tanec Praha have organised international workshops, meetings (live and online), dissemination events and activities, as well as commissioning research articles.
Register for the event at Dance Ireland
Over two days we will share insights of the research developed across Europe through knowledge and networking opportunities to expand inclusion and wellbeing practices when welcoming and engaging refugees through dance.
On this occasion we welcome renowned dancer and choreographer nora chipaumire who will give a workshop on an animist decolonial practice, ‘Nhaka’ (‘inheritance’, ‘legacy’ in the Shona language), which she has been cultivating for more than a decade.
Workshop with nora chipaumire
Picture by Erik Tanner
‘Nhaka’ (‘inheritance’, ‘legacy’ in the Shona language) is an animist decolonial practice and theory that nora, renowned dancer and choreographer, has been cultivating for more than a decade. The work and philosophy owe its genealogy to Shona culture and Shona spiritual practices. nora has been decoding, recoding and coding strategies on how to discipline and build the physical body, in hopes of developing an organism that can reflect and produce gestures that expand our understanding of the human and the relationship of the human organism with the natural and spiritual world.
By referring to Nhaka and applying it, participants will be introduced to physical practice, sound, gesture, space, spirit-text, language — but largely, exploring the question why it matters to make art in spite of it all: race, history, empire. In this workshop, participants will be part of a creative and critical ‘thinking lab’, designed to investigate the nature of black bodies and challenge the legacies of colonialism that inequitably distribute the right to life. Working together, how can an exchange of knowledge that exceeds the colonial values of our grandparents be provoked?
In addition to thinking about race and colonial history, this workshop will ask fundamental questions about art and its purpose. What is art? Why do we make art? Participants can expect to explore such questions in a vibrant exchange that engages with their individual ideas, intellectual experiences and their artistic projects.
nora chipaumire was born in 1965 in what was then known as Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe). She is a product of colonial education for Black native Africans – known as group B schooling – and is invested in knowledge acquisition and sharing outside of prescribed parameters. chipaumire’s latest works are her performances acontinua- an obituary, a manual for a life lived chasing LIFE – (2025) premiered at MITsp Brazil, and Dambudzo premiered in the frame of Wiener Festwochen amd NEHANDA (2021), a large-scale opera, and the installation afternow (2022). Prior to the pandemic, chipaumire toured #PUNK 100% POP *NIGGA, a three-part live performance album. Her other live works include portrait of myself as my father (2016), RITE RIOT (2012) and Miriam (2012). She made her directorial debut with the short film Afro Promo #1 King Lady (2016).
