OZ Arts Unveils New Season Featuring Artists From Six Continents

Contemporary arts center OZ Arts Nashville will host its most international season of programming yet, featuring 10 groundbreaking performances created by artists from 6 continents, all using power, grace, and even humor to confront and transcend our turbulent times. The diverse, acclaimed, and occasionally provocative artists in the 2025/26 line-up include high-tech multimedia productions; low-fi, real-time creations of charming live films; fresh and vital voices from contemporary dance; and innovative theatrical experiences. The season features original works by artists all the way from Chile to South Africa, from Japan to France, and from New York to Nashville.

The season kicks off October 23-25 with the U.S. Premiere of French dance artists Compangie Dyptik and their riveting dance-theatre production Le Grand Bal (or "the big party"). This raw, high-octane fusion of hip-hop, theater, and contemporary dance is inspired by a tale of villagers descending into a chaotic dance party for days on end, and, in the modern context, transforms personal and global unease into an explosive celebration of collective release.

In mid-November, OZ Arts welcomes Chilean multimedia company TeatroCinema back to Nashville for the first time since their highly memorable performances in March 2020. Their latest, cutting-edge production, Rosa, features eye-popping multimedia artistry masterfully fused with dynamic live theater to portray a woman whose life through times of personal and political tumult is flashing before her eyes.

Two of Tennessee's most intriguing artists take center stage for a thrilling double-bill of contemporary dance and music collaborations on December 5 & 6. Statuesque and passionate choreographer and dancer Becca Hoback will perform her dance/film/music triptych Solus, capping off her triumphant, multi-year Sacral Series. Celebrated choreographer and community icon Shabaz Ujima and frequent collaborator Thea Jones gather their shackled feet DANCE! performers to team up with trumpeter, composer, and visual artist Rod McGaha on Synergy, a new work exploring the liberation of the body free from rigid structures via "Black Classical Music," how Miles Davis referred to jazz music.

The new year kicks off a string of world-class visiting artists with Birdie from Barcelona's legendary visual theater and multimedia collective Agrupación Señor Serrano on January 30 & 31. This "thrilling and thought-provoking" production utilizes 2,000 toy animals and props, Alfred Hitchcock's legendary film The Birds, and golf to explore the migration of birds and humans alike.

Rising star Ogemdi Ude, one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch," brings her tender and fierce homage to Black femininity, MAJOR, to OZ Arts from February 12-14. The Georgia native created this bold new work inspired by majorette culture, set to the groove of the Southern-born dance form richly mixing hip-hop, voguing, and kick-line precision. MAJOR arrives in Nashville after a world premiere in Hamburg's prestigious Kampnagel International Summer Festival in July 2025 and a U.S. premiere at New York Live Arts in January 2026.

Tokyo-based, virtuosic multimedia designer and choreographer Hiroaki Umeda returns to OZ Arts in late March for the first time since 2019. His high-velocity performance style merges multiple video projections with inventive sound design and dance to create an unexpected thrill ride. In addition to his signature solo performance assimilating, the evening will also include a more introspective group work, Movement Slate 1, set on 5 femme Hip-hop dancers from the Somatic Field Project.

Also making her return visit to Nashville is post-modern, Australian cabaret legend Meow Meow, who will bewitch audiences at OZ Arts for one-night-only on April 11. The deliciously deranged diva and disruptor "drags cabaret kicking and screaming into the 21st century" (Time Out New York) with her hilarious and highly intoxicating stage presence, performing a blend of bawdy tunes, scintillating covers, and political songs from the Weimar Republic.

The final international visiting artist in OZ's 2025/26 Season brings a cross-continental collaboration between South Africa's Impilo Mapantsula and Switzerland-based choreographer Jeremy Nedd which explores the high-octane speed of the Pantsula dance form juxtaposed with the transcendant moments of Pentecostal "praise breaks." The Ecstatic features fast-paced footwork and trance-like moments of calm, making its U.S. Premiere at OZ Arts on May 1 & 2.

Local artists will take center stage again at the fifth annual Brave New Works Lab, featuring multiple short-form creations by artists in Middle Tennessee with performances May 14-16. The game-changing laboratory for adventurous local artists has already served as a crucial incubator for some of the most exciting new work happening in the region, showcasing 16 new projects across the first four years. A selection of new works for the 2026 Lab will be chosen from an open call for proposals, now through September 30.

The 2025/26 Season closes with the latest magical production from beloved Chicago-based company Manual Cinema. In The 4th Witch, stunning projection techniques and live music combine to tell the story of a young girl living through war who is adopted by the three witches from Macbeth. Remembered from their amazing multimedia re-invention of Frankenstein at OZ Arts in 2019, Manual Cinema returns to Nashville from June 4-6 with this highly-anticipated new production that features the company's deeply resonant visual storytelling and ingenious mix of old and new technologies.

"At a time when we are all working to make sense of the global upheaval all around us, this landmark season for OZ Arts builds on our commitment to highlight some of the most innovative artists from around the world, giving a platform to artists who are interrogating our present moment and envisioning bold futures," said Mark Murphy, OZ Arts Executive and Artistic Director. "We are proud to expand our 'window on the world' with these brave artists, and we welcome audiences to join us in the essential dialogue around some of the most urgent issues of our time."

Full details for the 2025/26 Season can be found here. Curious audience members can also plan to attend the organization's Season Preview event at OZ Arts on Tuesday, September 9th between 5:30pm-7:30pm.

OZ Arts remains committed to accessible pricing for this season of international programming and is introducing new ticket levels this year: a discounted rate that preserves the organization's commitment to Artists & Creative Community members (starting at just $20), adjusted General Admission to reflect rising production costs (starting at $30), and a Generous Admission option for those able to give more (starting at $40). Season subscriptions and ticket packages also reflect these pricing options, with a full 10-show season subscription priced at just $285 for General Admission, and 6-show Dance or Theatre packages available for just $170.

The 2025/26 Season at OZ Arts Nashville is made possible, in part, by funding from the Metro Nashville Arts Commission, the Tennessee Arts Commission, HCA Healthcare / Tri-Star Health, Advanced Financial Foundation, Amazon, and Gibson Gives. For more information or to purchase tickets for the upcoming season, visit www.ozartsnashville.org.

OZ ARTS 2025/26 SEASON LINE-UP

Compagnie Dyptik (France): Le Grand Bal (U.S. Premiere) | October 23-25, 2025

Fueled by breathtaking intensity and stunning theatricality, the award-winning performance Le Grand Bal ignited a spark that quickly spread throughout Europe and beyond - becoming one of the most talked-about dance-theater events in recent years. Nine astounding performers become enraptured in a glorious and frenetic trance as their bodies experience a transformative release from the pressures of life in turbulent times. Described by its creators as a dance of "revolt and ecstasy," the work draws its power from a hyper-physical mix of Hip-hop and contemporary dance. They take their inspiration from a legendary tale of a mysterious "dance fever" said to have consumed the population of Luxembourg in the early 16th century. Building like a shudder through the ensemble, this galvanizing frenzy liberates bodies on the verge of implosion, offering a potent metaphor for collective catharsis.

TeatroCinema (Chile): Rosa | November 12 & 13, 2025

TeatroCinema's groundbreaking visual storytelling fuses live performance with eye-popping video and animation, creating a hyper-stylized theatrical experience that unfolds like a graphic novel come to life. Famous worldwide for their masterful use of cinematic wizardry on stage, the company's latest acclaimed production, Rosa, takes audiences on a lush and vibrant multimedia journey through time and memory. As Rosa's life flashes before her eyes, she revisits decades of social upheaval - from the 1970s to the 2019 revolt that led to Chile's new constitution - while also reflecting on a life of love, visualized through dreams, memories, and imagination.

Becca Hoback: Solus and shackled feet DANCE!: Synergy | December 5 & 6, 2025

Two of Tennessee's most inspired choreographers collaborate with composers and video artists to create a double-bill of entirely original premieres merging dance, film, live music, and dynamic theatrical power.

One of Nashville's most distinct talents, Becca Hoback is a passionate and statuesque presence who embodies her lithely articulate choreography with elegant aplomb. Solus, her collaboration with composer and cellist Kaitlyn Raitz is a dance/film/music triptych that beautifully explores a search for the sacred and profound, capping off her triumphant, multi-year Sacral Series.

Celebrated choreographer and community icon Shabaz Ujima joins forces with long-time collaborator Thea Jones under the banner of shackled feet DANCE!, creating a new work entitled Synergy. Featuring a stunning group of dancers and recognizable jazz musicians, led by trumpeter, composer, and visual artist Rod McGaha, this new production breaks free from any rigid constructs to celebrate a synergy of spirited artistry. The joyous group work centers around the liberation of the body and the mind found through Black Classical Music, the term that legendary musician Miles Davis preferred for jazz music, and experiments with structured improvisations from the musicians and dancers alike. Taking us through a spectrum of emotions and dance styles, this dynamic evening from two of Nashville's most exciting dance artists creates a space for empowerment and a reminder of the importance of personal autonomy.

Agrupación Señor Serrano: Birdie | January 30 & 31, 2026

Bold, imaginative, and unforgettable, Birdie is a genre-defying theatrical experience that straddles the line between visual art, film, and live performance. Drawing from sources as varied as Hitchcock's The Birds, the game of golf, animal migration, and human survival, Birdie delivers a revelatory multimedia production featuring live video, film fragments, scale models, 2,000 miniature animals, and three magnetic performers. With incisive wit and unfailing humanity, the show takes audiences on a migration between two worlds - one fractured by war, displacement, and environmental collapse, and the other defined by order, progress, and social welfare. What connects the two is an unstoppable journey of migrants, and the ceaseless movement of all that exists.

Ogemdi Ude: MAJOR | February 12-14, 2026

Celebrating the power and legacy of majorette dance, a team of Southern Black femmes embodies the movement of their girlhood to answer the questions of their present. MAJOR preserves, transforms, and continues majorette tradition through electrifying movement, documentary theater, a live marching band, and an online interview archive. Exploring themes of physical memory, sexuality, and sensuality, this compelling new work honors and uplifts the creative practices and stories of the folks who taught the team how to be proudly Black and proudly femme.

Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance artist, educator, and doula based in Harlem, New York and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. As an artist and educator, she supports others in investigating their cultural, familial, and personal histories - how they are embedded in their bodies and influence their everyday and performative movement.

Hiroaki Umeda: assimilating and Movement Slate 1 | March 26-28, 2026

Renowned for his "virtuoso melding of technology and movement" (Scotland Herald), choreographer and performer Hiroaki Umeda redefines the boundaries of dance and performance with his inventive use of multiple video projections and immersive sound art. A true interdisciplinary force - choreographer, dancer, and designer of audio, image, and lighting - Umeda creates high-velocity, visually stunning experiences that blur the line between installation and live performance. Following riveting performances in 2019, his thrilling fusion of body, light, and sound returns to OZ Arts with two internationally acclaimed multimedia works: His stunning solo assimilating is a high-octane visual spectacle, and his cinematic group work Moving State 1 highlights five female Hip-hop performers from his influential Somatic Field Project.

Meow Meow: Diva & Disruptor | April 11, 2026

Hilarious and highly intoxicating, Meow Meow returns to her adoring fans in Nashville with her unique brand of subversive and sublime cabaret art, which has thrilled, inspired, and occasionally terrified audiences globally from London's West End to Lincoln Center, Berlin to Shanghai, and the Hollywood Bowl to the Sydney Opera House. Named one of the "Top Performers of the Year" by The New Yorker, the crowd-surfing tragi-comedienne's solo works have been commissioned by David Bowie, Pina Bausch, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, among others.

It is hard to describe her uniquely addictive sense of humor and triple-threat stage talent, but Time Out New York came close when they wrote: "Meow Meow's parody of glitz is part of a package that also includes physical comedy, social commentary and a brilliantly eclectic polyglot repertoire, with a special affinity for the songs of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill." As Meow herself says: "I always will sing a political song while doing the splits...I still want people to laugh while I'm getting the message across."

Impilo Mapantsula (South Africa) and Jeremy Nedd (Switzerland): The Ecstatic | May 1 & 2, 2026

The furiously fast footwork of Pantsula, a South African percussive street dance style, is juxtaposed with soaring Pentecostal "praise breaks" when the six members of Johannesburg-based Impilo Mapantsula make their U.S. Debut in The Ecstatic. This internationally-acclaimed collaboration with Basel-based choreographer Jeremy Nedd is a high-octane celebration of the youth-driven culture of Pantsula, which is rooted in high-speed virtuosic footwork but has also given rise to its own lifestyle, language, music, and fashion. In the final days of Apartheid, the movement gave a voice to a whole generation.

The praise break in Pentecostal services is a pause - a break in the church service, where the dancing body, voice, and music energetically coalesce and start to blur the difference between ecstatic and cathartic. As the artists ask themselves what happens when these two worlds converge - what happens in this transcendental moment of "break" - they discover and "break open" a new space all their own.

Brave New Works Lab 2024 | May 16-18, 2024

Celebrate local innovation and creativity with a bold evening of entirely original short-form performances featuring dance, theater, music, and multimedia. Now in its fifth year, the Brave New Works Lab has become one of the most important resources for daring Nashville-based artists working in contemporary performance, inviting them to transform OZ Arts into a laboratory for the creation and premiere of new works and works-in-progress. Encouraging multimedia experimentation and collaboration across disciplines, the lab creates a safe space for high-risk artistic adventures and has already served as a crucial incubator for some of the most exciting new work happening in Middle Tennessee.

Projects for the Brave New Works Lab will be selected from an open call for artist proposals, open now through September 30, 2025. Artists of all performance disciplines - and especially teams of artists working across disciplines - are encouraged to apply. Visit ozartsnashville.org for more information.

Manual Cinema: The 4th Witch | June 4-6, 2026

Told through breathtaking shadow puppetry, actors in silhouette, and evocative live music, Manual Cinema's latest theatrical experience is a "visually sumptuous" (City Paper) inversion of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Orphaned by war, a young girl is rescued by three witches, who agree to take her on as an apprentice on the condition that she must never use her powers for revenge. Consumed by grief and rage, the girl comes to realize that it was the warlord Macbeth who killed her parents - and that she must choose between reconciliation or vengeance.

Perfect for families and theater buffs alike, this highly-anticipated new production showcases Manual Cinema's deeply resonant visual storytelling and ingenious mix of old and new technologies. You won't want to miss the acclaimed company's first return to OZ Arts since their sold-out hit Frankenstein.

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