Thuli dumakude biography channel
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Okwui Okpokwasili is a writer, performer and choreographer based in New York and she is the recipient of a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production for Pent-Up: A Revenge Dance. Her newest work with collaborator Peter Born titled POOR PEOPLE’S TV ROOM, is currently appearing at REDCAT through February The performances given by the cast of four women are intense and powerful. The movement is stark, repetitive and sometimes frantic, and the work is occasionally difficult to absorb because of its severe visual and verbal realities. Peter Born’s set turns life upside down and backwards to create a surrealistic atmosphere, but Okpokwasili’s characters, movement and text strike a very honest cord within ones’ universal knowledge of how women have been and still are treated.
POOR PEOPLE’S TV ROOM was inspired by the “Women’s War” in Nigeria, a movement that took months for the government to suppress, and one that became known as a “historic example of feminist and anti-colonial pro
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Thuli Dumakude
STAGE CREDITS
[Broadway]
Original Broadway Production,
Rafiki (Alternate)[Replacement]
Roza
[Broadway]
Original Broadway Production,
Woman
Madame Bouaffa (Understudy)
Halala!
[Off-Broadway]
Original Off-Broadway Production,
Performer
Poppie Nongena
[Off-Broadway]
Original Off-Broadway Production,
Performer
Roza
[Los Angeles]
Regional Production,
Performer
Productions
Halala!
[Off-Broadway, ]
Choreographer
Vocal Music Arranger
Awards and Nominations
winner
Olivier Awards - - Actress of the Year in a New Play
Thuli Dumakude, Poppie Nongena
Drama Desk Awards - - Outstanding Actress in a Play
Thuli Dumakude, Poppie Nongena
More Videos
News
Acclaimed Multidisciplinary Performance POOR PEOPLE'S TV ROOM Opens 2/8
by A.A. Cristi - Jan 25,
REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for contemporary arts, presents the Los Angeles premiere of Poor People's TV Room, th
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Oprah and Boko Haram history in a difficult work
IN PERFORMANCE ‘Poor People’s TV Room’ ??? 1 /2
By Lauren Warnecke Chicago Tribune
“There was a time, way, way back, when Oprah was a human being,” said Thuli Dumakude near the beginning of Okwui Okpokwasili’s “Poor People’s TV Room,” running through Sunday at the MCA.
The line is a welcome break from the intense opening to this interdisciplinary work for four women, whose ages span a few generations. Dumakude is the eldest, spending much of the work’s overture seated stoically in a patio chair.
She is a calming presence in an otherwise saturated space; visual elements by scenic designer Peter Born section off the upstage space using translucent plastic sheeting, behind which is Okpokwasili, topless, her body shuddering and convulsing as it moves in and out of our field of vision. Downstage of her is Katrina Reid, who traces a diagonal path alongside Okpokwasili. It’s what dancers call the “strong diagonal” — the