Out-FRONT! Fest. Presenting: Ogemdi Ude

Ogemdi Ude

Hear

Saturday and Sunday, January 13 and 14, at 7 p.m.

In Hear, choreographer Ogemdi Ude pulls from a bereft archive of video and sound bites in an attempt to materialize and present the profile of someone lost. The solo, originally a part of a trilogy, is of Ude’s ongoing practice in deriving coping rituals in the aftermath of loss. Her work is built by grieving the loss of loved ones, and preserving the language, movements, and creative actions that emerge from that grief. She opens portals to the dead, to communicate with them, retell their stories, and preserve their memory. Can we connect to people who aren’t here anymore by making something out of all the bits that are? Featuring sound by slowdanger. Hear premiered in 2022. 

BIO

Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance and interdisciplinary artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn. Her performance work focuses on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. Her work has been presented at Gibney, Danspace Project, Abrons Arts Center, BRIC, ISSUE Project Room, Recess Art, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Center for Performance Research, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, La MaMa Courthouse, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. As an educator, she serves as Head of Movement for Theater at Professional Performing Arts School and has taught at Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, MIT, and University of the Arts. She is a 2022-2023 Smack Mellon Artist-in-Residence and 2022-2024 Movement Research Artist- in-Residence. Ude has been a 2021 danceWEB Scholar, 2021 Laundromat Project Create Change Artist-in-Residence, and a 2019-2020 Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU Resident Fellow. In January 2022 she appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine for their annual “25 to Watch” issue. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in English, Dance, and Theater from Princeton University. 

SOCIAL HANDLES: @gemgemdi

About Pioneers Go East Collective

Pioneers Go East Collective is a radical queer laboratory collective of performing and visual artists dedicated to dance-theater and video art to empower the LGBTQ experience. An artist-driven collective, they create works of high artistic merit to build a platform to positively impact their community. Based in New York City, the collective is led by LGBTQ-identifying, BIPOC, and immigrant artists and cultural organizers Daniel Diaz, Joey Kipp, Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, and Philip Treviño. The collective portrays same-gender-loving experiences, memory, and marginalization that resonate with contemporary lives. Pioneers Go East Collective combines stories of vulnerability and courage with popular culture to facilitate communal meaning and advocate for cultural integrity. Pioneers Go East Collective’s work has been widely presented and developed in New York City with partnerships and residencies at BAM, BRIC Arts Media, Judson Church, The LGBT Community Center, Center for Performance Research, Abrons Arts Center, La MaMa, JACK, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Chashama Gallery (Harlem), Goethe Institute gallery, Exponential Festival, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Process Space at Governors Island/LMCC, Lumberyard (Catskill, NY), Collar Works (Troy, NY), and Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto. Current collaborators include syd island, Vanessa Rappa, Symara Johnson, ALEXA Grae, Darrin Wright, Mark Tambella, Paul Simon, Jo Wiegandt, Azmi Mert Erdem, joy (Zanni productions), Lynn Ligammari, and Bryan Baira. pioneersgoeast.org

Out-FRONT! Fest. is supported in part with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.

Social Handles: @PioneersGoEast and Facebook at PioneersGoEast