Following its mission to bring “influential developments in the arts” to Los Angeles audiences, the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater (REDCAT) will present nora chipaumire’s “DAMBUDZO” this Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 25-27, 2025, at 8 p.m.
The multiple award-winning interdisciplinary artist, who is also a 2012 Herb Alpert Dance Award recipient, is originally from Rhodesia and is now based in New York. The work’s title, which translates from this Zimbabwe Shona word into “trouble,” encompasses a production that includes dance, live and prerecorded sound, painting and sculpture. Promotional materials describe the show as a nonlinear narrative that “confronts colonial legacies and the revolutionary possibilities of performance.” The theater itself is transformed into a “shabini,” which is “an informal bar set up in private residences where citizens gather to debate politics and plan community action.”
Also inspired by the writings of home country fellow Dambudzo Marechera, “DAMBUDZO” features nine performers who reflect on the “complex struggles of the 1980s” as they offer the audience more than passive witnessing to become a “lived experience of resistance and ritual.”
On Friday, Sept. 26, there will be a post-show Q&A with the creator, moderated by REDCAT Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Performing Arts Katy Dammers.
—Benn Widdey, Culture Spot LA
LOCATION:
REDCAT, 631 W. Second St., LA 90012
TICKETS:
$14-$27
https://www.redcat.org/events/2025/nora-chipaumire
INFO:
https://www.companychipaumire.com
https://www.redcat.org/events/2025/nora-chipaumire
Photo by Nurith Wagner-Strauss