Nigerian-American artist, choreographer, writer, and performer Okwui Okpokwasili has been announced as one of the fellows of the 2018 MacArthur Genius Award.
She joins the likes of Nigerians like Chimamanda Adichie and Njideka Akunyili Crosby as one of the recipients of the prestigious award.
The 46-year-old choreographer was recognized for making the lives of women who have been left out of dominant culture narratives and their stories visible. The prestigious award comes with a whopping sum of $625,000 (N226 million).
The 2018 class of the “MacArthur Fellows“ program was announced on Thursday, the 4th of October, 2018, where 25 individuals from various fields were given a no-strings $625,000 award to encourage them to continue to innovate, take risks, and pursue their creative visions.
Born August 6, 1972, and raised in the Bronx, Okwui Okpokwasili is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who moved to the United States to escape the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s. Her work focuses on the interior lives of women of color, especially those of African descent, whose stories have been overlooked and deemed invisible.
Several of her works also relate to historical events in Nigeria. She is especially interested in cultural and historical memory and how the Western imagination perceives African bodies.
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Watch videos of her choreography below.
