Okwui Okpokwasili (she/her) is a performing artist, choreographer, and writer creating multidisciplinary performance pieces. The child of immigrants from Nigeria, Okpokwasili was born and raised in the Bronx, and the histories of these places and the girls and women who inhabit them feature prominently in much of her work. Her highly experimental productions include the Bessie Award-winning Pent-up: A Revenge Dance, the Bessie Award-winning Bronx Gothic, as well as Poor People’s TV Room, when I return who will receive me, Adaku’s Revolt, and the participatory performance installation Sitting on a Man’s Head, and adaku, part 1: the road opens. Recent works include installations in the exhibitions Grief and Grievance, Art and Mourning in America at the New Museum (NYC), Witchhunt at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and Sex Ecologies at Kunsthall Trondheim in Norway. Commissions include the performance on the way, undone at the High Line in NYC and at Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival, the film Returning for Danspace Project, the site-specific performance swallow the moon at Jacob’s Pillow, and a new 2024 commission from Little Island as part of its commitment to supporting original work.

Her work has been presented at such venues as the Walker Art Center, Performance Space New York, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, ICA Boston, MCA Chicago, BAM, and New York Live Arts. She has worked with film and theater directors Carrie Mae Weems, Ralph Lemon, Arthur Jafa, Terence Nance, Josephine Decker, Mika Rottenberg, Mahyad Tousi, Charlotte Brathwaite, Jim Findlay, Annie Dorsen, and Peter Born. Okpokwasili is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a 2018 Princeton University Hodder Fellowship, a 2018 Herb Alpert Award, a 2018 Doris Duke Artist Award, and a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship. Okpokwasili was the 2015-2017 Randjelovic/Stryker New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist (RCA.) She was the inaugural artist for the Kravis Studio Residency program at MoMA in 2022, and an artist in residence at the Brown Arts Institute in 2023.

Peter Born (he/him) works as a director, composer, and designer of performance and installation, often in collaboration with Okwui Okpokwasili, with whom he has created the installation turn, return at the Doris Duke Foundation (2024), repose without rest without end in Trondheim (2021), swallow the moon at Jacob’s Pillow (2021), on the way, undone at the High Line (2021), Poor People’s TV Room (SOLO) installation at the New Museum and the Hammer Museum (2021), Sitting on a Man’s Head (2019) at Danspace Project, Adaku’s Revolt (2019) at Abrons Arts Center, Poor People’s TV Room (2017), when I return, who will receive me (2016), Bronx Gothic (The Oval) (2014), Bronx Gothic (2013), and pent-up: a revenge dance (2009). Born and Okpokwasili also produced an album, day pulls down the sky, in 2019. Their work has also appeared in the Berlin Biennale and at the Tate Modern, London. Born has collaborated with David Thomson as a director, designer, and writer on The Venus Knot (2017) and he his own mythical beast (2018), and as a set designer for Nora Chipaumire’s rite/riot (2014) and El Capitan Kinglady (2016). His work Poor People’s TV Room (SOLO), created in collaboration with Okpokwasili, is in the collections of the Hammer Museum and the Whitney Museum. Four of his collaborations have garnered New York Dance Performance (Bessie) Awards.

His work as an art director and prop stylist has been featured in video and photo projects with Vogue, Estee Lauder, Barney’s Co-op, Bloomingdales, Old Navy, 25 magazine, The Wall Street Journal and No Strings Puppet Productions. Born is a former New York public high school teacher, itinerant floral designer, corporate actor-facilitator, video maker, and furniture designer.

For more information about Sweat Variant / Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, visit www.sweatvariant.com.

Okwui Okpokwasili (she/her) is a performing artist, choreographer, and writer creating multidisciplinary performance pieces. See details above.

Bria Bacon is a performing artist, predominantly trained in dance, holding passions and gifts in writing, theatre, sound-making and singing. She has worked with Bebe Miller Company, Stefanie Batten Bland, ChameckiLerner, Wendell Gray II, Sally Silvers, Donna Uchizono, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Stephen Petronio Company, and Kyle Marshall Choreography, as well as Beth Gill and Rachel Comey in NYFW and Company Christoph Winkler in Berlin. Currently, she is working with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group and Sweat Variant (Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born), among others. All praise to the angels, ancestors, and folx within her village.

Alessandra Azeviche is a Salvador, Bahia-born dance artist who has been breaking boundaries in Ireland since 2018. A leading Afro-Brazilian artist connecting ancestral movements to a contemporary approach. Founder of the multicultural, counter-colonial Afro-Brazilian community Quilombo Terra in 2022, Azeviche also sits on the board of Dublin Dance Festival. Her acclaimed solo debut ‘Terra’ was performed at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2024, nominated for two Fringe awards. She has also performed in Irish Modern Dance Theatre shows, and as part of Hot Brown Honey at Dublin Fringe 2022. Azeviche is increasingly working in contemporary arts performance, dealing with themes of counter colonization and intersectionality.