Movies

Okwui Okpokwasili (/ˈoʊkwi oʊkˈpoʊkwəsɪli/; born August 6, 1972) is an American artist, performer, choreographer, and writer. Her multidisciplinary performances draw upon her training in theatre, and she describes her work as at "the intersection of theatre, dance, and the installation." Several of her works relate to historical events in Nigeria. She is especially interested in cultural and historical memory and how the Western imagination perceives African bodies.

Early life
The daughter of Igbo Nigerians who moved to the United States to escape the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s, Okpokwasili grew up in the Bronx, New York. She attended Yale University, where she met filmmaker Andrew Rossi, who made a documentary about her piece Bronx Gothic.

Career
Okpokwasili has become a key figure in the New York experimental dance scene. She is known for several one-woman performances and for her frequent collaborations with Ralph Lemon and Peter Born, her husband. Born often directs and designs the lighting and staging for Okpokwasili's performances.

She is also known for her role in the music video for Jay-Z's album 4:44 created by TNEG, a production company founded by Arthur Jafa.

In April 2017, she performed at Mass MOCA, responding to Nick Cave's massive installation work Until with a site-specific dance. The performance was co-sponsored by Jacob's Pillow Dance; choreographer Bill T. Jones performed earlier in the series of artists responding to Cave's installation.

She played the part of KK in Josephine Decker's 2018 film, Madeline's Madeline.

In a theatrical role, Okpokwasili performed the part of Hippolyta in Julie Taymor's 2013 production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.