Mufutau Yusuf's ÒWE to Make World Premiere At New Irish Arts Center

Irish Arts Center will present Mufutau Yusuf's Òwe, the artist's full-length NYC choreographic debut. With Òwe-"proverb" in the Yoruba language-the Nigeria-born Yusuf seeks to decode his personal identity through the lens of the ancestral, in an evocative confluence of personal, ritual, and digital archives. Performed by Yusuf, the work makes its world premiere April 21-24 (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8pm; Sunday at 2pm) at the new Irish Arts Center (726 11th Avenue, between 51st & 52nd Streets). Tickets are available here.

In Òwe, through a charged amalgam of traditional and contemporary movement, danced emotionally and ritually resurrects aspects of the past. With music and soundscape, video projection, sculptural set elements, and text, the stage teems with symbolic and literal representations of traditions and histories foundational to, and blurred within, Yusuf's sense of identity. Here, found images and texts immediately denoting the historic-from a speech surrounding Nigerian independence; from the subsequent Civil War-share a stage with portraits of the artist, of his father, as movement that alternates between implosive spasms and soaring openness bridges memory of the intimate and the macro.

One of Europe's most electrifying dance artists, Yusuf was seen previously in New York with Irish Modern Dance Theatre (now John Scott Dance) at La MaMa and 92Y's Fridays at Noon series, where The New York Times wrote, "When the charismatic Mufutau Yusuf is onstage, it's hard to look anywhere else." Yusuf, now 29, began dancing in John Scott performances at 18, and through these works felt he could begin to reflect on his identity through dance.

Having immigrated to Ireland from Nigeria with his father and siblings at 9, Yusuf describes often feeling like he was "floating between two cultures: without [his] feet planted in either, and especially [his] Nigerian past." Sensing the growing desire to reconfirm slippery memories, he conceived this work around traveling back to Nigeria for the first time in his adulthood-which he describes as an artistic pilgrimage, and a consolidation of selfhood.

He says, "I come from the Yoruba people of Nigeria, and I am a dancer, but I never learned traditional Yoruba dance. I wanted to get closer to these things-learning the dance, learning the history, learning the music, things that I could find information on through the objective archives of the Internet and books. But then at one point it took a shift and I realized I was trying to point a light on myself. What is my personal archive, what archive is contained in me, in my memory? I wanted to superimpose that with the objective archive and particularly the digital archive-because for so long the only way I could learn a lot more about the past and where I come from was through the Internet-and play in between those."

Yusuf's piece takes inspiration from the writing of Nigerian historian Toyin Falola, who in the essay "Ritual Archives" calls for the expansion of notions of the archive, and what it holds, beyond its Western institutional framework. Falola emphasizes "the metaphorical and mystical sense of 'archive'... that dimension of archive that is never (fully) collected but retains power and agency in invisible ways." With a soundscape beginning with the repeated invitation of a play button being hit on a VHS tape-and a set that features a traditional Yoruba masquerade made from VHS tape-Yusuf also nods to Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, a play whose intimate, lonely vision of a personal archive sees a man alone onstage, juxtaposed against recordings of previous selves. He cites choreographers Qudus Onikeku and Nora Chipaumire, writers Ben Okri and Chinua Achebe, and visual artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby as key within the archive of influences for the thematic and aesthetic world of Òwe.

Òwe continues a relationship between Irish Arts Center and Yusuf that began with New Dance Ireland: Choreographers of Nowness, IAC and 92Y's 2019 multi-event showcase of work by world-class Irish and Irish American choreographers representing a wide perspective on modern Irish identity. Yusuf was one of 26 artists selected by IAC to respond to the chaos of the early pandemic moment, and the idea of finding grace in uncertainty, through their online Grásta commissions series. For this, Yusuf created the short dance film Observations, which he described as "first instigated by the spread of Covid-19 then unfolding into the recent but familiar case of systemic racism in the US." With Òwe, the artist expands his genre-transcendent, multi-media vision of dance and performance within Irish Arts Center's new, flexible, state-of-the-art theater.

About Mufutau Yusuf

Nigeria-born Irish performer Mufutau Yusuf had his introduction to contemporary dance at the age of 16 with Dublin Youth Dance Company, and made his professional debut two years later with the Irish Modern Dance Theater in 'Fall and Recover', the first of many works with the company.

Mufutau subsequently enrolled in a four-year undergraduate program at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, and since graduating in 2016, has worked as a freelancer with various choreographers and companies in Ireland and Europe, as well as developing his own artistic works for both stage and film.

Mufutau is currently based between Ireland and Brussels, where he works with Belgian company Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez. He was a recipient of the Irish Arts Council Dance Bursary award in 2020 and has been using the award for the research and development of this new solo work titled Òwe. Mufutau is also currently an associate artist with Liz Roche Company.

About Irish Arts Center

Irish Arts Center, founded in 1972 and based in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, is a home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion or appreciation for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America. We present, develop, and celebrate work from established and emerging artists and cultural practitioners, providing audiences with emotionally and intellectually engaging experiences-fueled by collaboration, innovation, adventurousness, authenticity, and the celebration of our common humanity, in an environment of Irish hospitality. Steeped in grassroots traditions, we also provide community education programs and access to the arts for people of all ages and ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. In an historic partnership of the people of Ireland and New York, Irish Arts Center recently opened a state-of-the-art new facility to support this mission for the 21st century.

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