This work is an Afro-Feminist manifesto beautifying bodies to claim the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Using low-tech — do-it-yourself aesthetics, this short film demonstrates how presence, fashion and pop culture can be a vehicle for self-invention and self-determination. The film features a black African female superhero who commands regal authority. Her superhero powers are the mastery of time, space and energy i.e. dance: a virtuosity that brings beauty, health, wellbeing to all who witness her dance.

Nora Chipaumire was born in 1965 in what was then known as Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe). She studied law at the University of Zimbabwe and dance at Mills College in Oakland, California. Her long-term research project “nhaka,” a technology-based practice and process to her artistic work, investigates the nature of black bodies and the products of their imaginations. She has been featured in several dance films and made her directorial debut with the short film “Afro Promo #1 King Lady” (2016). She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

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