Okwui Okpokwasili & Peter Born

Meet our 2026 New York City Artadia Awards Finalist! sweat variant describes the collaborative practice of Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born. Since 1996, they have been working at the intersection of dance, theater, and visual art to make challenging and rigorous work that reaffirms that which has been deemed marginal as the true center through the exploration of Black interiority. They are interested in building a spectacle of radical intimacy, where both performers and audience are acknowledged as being locked in a mutual gaze. Okwui Okpokwasili (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based performer, actor, choreographer, and writer. Okpokwasili has earned numerous accolades, including a 2025 Art Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2018 Princeton University Hodder Fellowship, a 2018 Herb Alpert Award, a 2018 Doris Duke Artist Award, and a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, and was the 2015-2017 Randjelovic/Stryker New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist, 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. She continues to collaborate with Ralph Lemon, Kevin Beasley, Saidiya Hartman, and Kaneza Schaal, among other artists. Peter Born (he/him) works as a director, composer, and designer of performance and installation. In collaboration with Okpokwasili, Peter’s work has been featured in the Berlin Biennale, “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America” at the New Museum, “Witch Hunt” at the Hammer Museum, “Loophole of Retreat: Venice”, “sex ecologies” at Kunsthall Trondheim, as well as performance work at MoMA, the Whitney Museum, MASS MoCA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and ICA Boston, among others. He is the recipient of four 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. Okwui Okpokwasili headshot photo by Michael Avedon. Peter Born headshot photo courtesy of the artist.

Co-presented with Danspace Project Malcolm-x Betts and Okwui Okpokwasili are both interdisciplinary artists who work in and around dance. Each of them, in their own ways, makes performances that articulate the expansive vision of the Black radical tradition, while simultaneously grounding that vision in everyday intensities of desire, grief, love, and rage. They both approach movement as a site of textual experimentation and language as a bodily material, working at the limit of what seems possible, approaching scenes of abandonment with abandon. For this shared evening, co-presented with Danspace Project, Betts and Okpokwasili will have an opportunity to highlight the presence of writing in their respective practices, each reading from new and in-progress works. Friday 5/22, 8pm in the Parish Hall at St Mark's Church poetryproject.org/events

🥳TICKETS ARE SELLING FAST - RESERVE YOURS TODAY! Honoring Okwui Okpokwasili & Peter Born, @sweatvariant , and Eleanor Savage To purchase tickets and more information about this year’s gala visit: /MRGala Tuesday, May 19 2026 Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Square South New York, NY 6pm | Dinner 8pm | Performance & Party 🎫Tickets Dinner, Performance & Party (6pm entry) Sponsorship Tables | $5,000-$25,000 Benefactor Ticket | $2,500 Patron Ticket | $1,000 Dinner Ticket | $500 Artist/Arts-Worker Sliding Scale Dinner Ticket | $200-$300 Performance & Party Only (8pm entry) Reserved Seating | $100 Standing Room | $50 🎤Emcees Ogemdi Ude and Paul Hamilton 🥳Performances at 8pm by AJ & Kris Eiko Otake Helga Davis Jennifer Monson with David Watson mayfield brooks yuniya edi kwon 🥳Dance Party Directly Following The Performances With DJ Sets By DANIRO and Kevin Beasley

NEW YORK CITY PREMIERE OF “my tongue is a blade” ON GOVERNORS ISLAND THIS JUNE Per­formed by: Okwui Okpok­wasili, Bria Bacon @briabacon , Kris Lee @mellowbastard and AJ Wilmore @domdamatrix Dramaturg: Katherine Profeta @kat.prof 📍Governors Island - Colonels Row Green 📆 June 19th and 20th 🕰️ 6PM-9PM durational performance practice: entry is rolling through the duration of the performance, and we encourage audiences to come and go throughout the piece. Advance book­ing is rec­om­mend­ed. Two entry time slots are avail­able at 6 and 7:30PM. For tickets go to the link in our bio 🔗 Pre­sent­ed as part of INTER­VEN­TIONS, Gov­er­nors Island Arts’ annu­al mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary per­for­mance series that presents local, nation­al, and inter­na­tion­al artists and invites audi­ences to expe­ri­ence work made and adapt­ed for out­door spaces. INTER­VEN­TIONS is curat­ed by Juan Pablo Siles, @jpsiles Asso­ciate Cura­tor and Pro­duc­er at the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island. “my tongue is a blade” on Governors Island is co-presented by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s River to River Festival. @lmcc_nyc Photography by Ava Pellor

💫 Movement Research 2026 Gala Honoree Spotlight! | OKWUI OKPOKWASILI & PETER BORN/SWEAT VARIANT For more information visit our website: /MRGala #linkinbio Join Movement Research and the 2026 Gala Co-Chairs in honoring Okwui Okpokwasili & Peter Born/Sweat Variant, and Eleanor Savage! When: Tuesday, May 19 2026 Location: Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Square South New York, NY 🎫Tickets Dinner, Performance & Party (6pm entry) Sponsorship Tables | $5,000-$25,000 Benefactor Ticket | $2,500 Patron Ticket | $1,000 Dinner Ticket | $500 Artist/Arts-Worker Sliding Scale Dinner Ticket | $200-$300 Performance & Party Only (8pm entry) Reserved Seating | $100 Standing Room | $50 Okwui Okpokwasili (she/her) is a performing artist, choreographer, and writer. 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 her work… (Learn more on our website) Peter Born is a director, composer and visual designer who works at the intersection of dance, performance and installation. He has created work at MoMA, the Young Vic, the Berlin Biennial, the Doris Duke Foundation, the High Line, the New Museum, the Wiener Festwochen, the Tate Modern and the Loophole of Retreat at the Venice Biennial... (Learn more on our website) Sweat Variant describes the collaborative practice of Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born. We are partners in our work and our lives. Since 1996, we have been working at the intersection of dance, theater, and visual art to make challenging and rigorous work that reaffirms that which has been deemed marginal as the true center through the exploration of Black interiority. (Learn more on our website)

✨ ASAP 2025 ARTIST HIGHLIGHT ✨ Nosarieme Garrick a.k.a Nosa is an Emmy-nominated producer and director. The ASAP award supports Last Weekend in October. Last Weekend in October is a character-driven documentary that explores Nigeria’s fashion ecosystem through the journeys of designers, tailors, models, and influencers as they prepare for Lagos Fashion Week—while navigating the country’s unavoidable pitfalls. Through the lens of fashion, it offers a layered and nuanced view of Lagos—capturing the realities of those involved in fashion and the intersections of creativity, culture, identity and class.   Recently, Garrick returned from CPH:FORUM in Copenhagen — one of the most prestigious documentary co-production markets in the world. “Last Weekend in October” made history as the first Nigerian project ever invited to the forum. Screen Daily named the film one of the buzziest projects there. Headshot taken by Zachary Rosen, and the following images are stills from the film. The film is still in its fundraising stretch, if you would like to support the project please be in contact with Producer Chioma Onyenwe at [email protected] For more about Garrick see the comments and her website

On April 29, from 7:30–9PM, the Yale Schwarzman Center hosts a solo work-in-process presentation of adaku, part 2, sharing elements of the developing work. Following the presentation, join us for a Q&A with Sweat Variant, moderated by Katherine Profeta, @kat.prof Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. The event will take place in The Dome. Free and open to the public with registration at the link in our bio. Featured image: Okwui in “untitled.” Photo by Glorija Blazinsek, 2022.

Endurance. Attention. Witnessing. My Tongue is a Blade, is a Blade, is a Blade by Ceadra Scott-Flaherty asks what it means to stay—to sit inside duration, repetition, and the slow unfolding of something deeply human. This thINKingDANCE review of a three-hour work by Sweat Variant captures how the piece tests not just the performers’ limits, but ours too—where time stretches, attention wanders, and the most powerful moments arrive only if you’re willing to stay. Link in our bio for this and other new articles #thINKingDANCE #MyTongueIsABlade #DurationalPerformance #ExperimentalDance #PerformanceArt #Embodiment #DanceWriting #LiveArt #BlackPerformance #SlowArt #SweatVariant

On March 12th, Okwui performed “day pulls down the sky” at Danspace Project as part of PLATFORM 2026. Thank you to Judy @jhussietaylor , Seta @seta_c_m and the Danspace team for making space for us to return to this album for the first time since 2020. And thank you to the audience for meeting the work with such openness and generosity. We look forward to sharing “day pulls down the sky” again. Until then, the album is available for streaming on Apple Music and Spotify. Photo: Rachel Keane

✨ASAP 2026 ARTIST HIGHLIGHT✨ Holland Andrews (they/them) and yuniya edi kwon (she/her) are composer-improvisers, vocalists, and interdisciplinary performance makers based in Brooklyn, NY. Their collaborative practice is an emergent and embodied extension of their lives as ritualists, spiritual practitioners, and partners. Holland, a multi-instrumentalist and producer, arranges music for voice, clarinet, and electronics, harnessing the power of these instruments to address themes of vulnerability, catharsis, and healing. yuniya, in her work, connects sound, movement, and ceremony to explore transformation, transgression, and mythology’s ability to both obscure and reveal. Their co-created opera-in-progress, How does it feel to look at nothing, is a transdisciplinary space of convergence for their shared life, queer-trans family, and beloved creative lineages, grounded in the foundational questions that connect and inspire them. Separately, their work has been presented by The Whitney, REDCAT, PICA, ISSUE Project Room, Dia Art Foundation, Performa Biennial, Roulette Intermedium, Civitella Ranieri, and others. Holland and yuniya are Foundation for Contemporary Arts Awardees and United States Artists Fellows. The ASAP award supports their collaborative project How does it feel to look at nothing. An opera of the elemental, of pre-deities, and illusions of containment, How does it feel to look at nothing is an embodied, interdisciplinary performance emerging through a story of transitional states. Composer-performers, multi-instrumentalists, and vocalists Holland Andrews and yuniya edi kwon co-create this work of composition, improvisation, dance, physical theater, and ritual. An embodied affirmation of trans futures amidst the disintegrative reality of trans life, How does it feel to look at nothing uses an improvised language of disintegration to tell the pre-origin story of a Deity of Namelessness.

Really enjoyed experiencing and writing about “my tongue is a blade” by @sweatvariant as part of @ps21chatham ’s new festival The Dark. Link to review in bio.

💜 “day pulls down the sky” is the first album of songs written and performed by Okwui Okpokwasili between 2012–2018. The idea for a solo album was initiated by Judy Hussie-Taylor and was recorded in John Kilgore's studio on January 8, 2019. The album was executive produced and released by Danspace Project as part of Hussie-Taylor and Okpokwasili's co-curated Platform 2020: Utterances from the Chorus. Six years later, Okwui will perform these songs and more for one night only (March 12 at 7:30PM) as a part of Platform 2026: Secret Gardens co-curated by Hussie-Taylor and Seta Morton. The limited edition purple vinyl LP will be on sale during the March 12 concert.