Join us for an evening of premiere presentations featuring multidisciplinary artists: Sheila Anozier, Steeven Labady, Atibon Nazaire, & Nubian Néné who will each present their work and participate in a post-show dialogue.
April 13, 2024
6 – 9pm
Shapeshifter Lab,
837 Union St, Brooklyn, NY 11215
About Diaspora NOW
Diaspora NOW is a platform for literary and performing artists of Haitian descent to premiere works in New York City, offering opportunities for Haitians and the general public to engage with new art that highlights experiences in the Diaspora.
About The Performers
Atibon Nazaire is an actor, musician, visual artist, activist, Brooklyn resident, and proud Haitian.
Atibon has performed in several notable films, series, and national ads. His credits include The Best Man: The Final Chapters, Beauty, FBI, New Amsterdam, Kaleb, Mother of George, Stones in the Sun, Farwell Amor, Gabriel, and Mountains, to name a few. Atibon trained in theater at Roxbury Outreach Shakespeare Experience (ROSE), Boston College, and Harvard University.
A consummate musician, he co-founded the musical groups Batwèl Rada and Tjovi Ginen and now can be seen drumming with different local Haitian alternative bands in dance classes and in Vodoun devotional ceremonies. Atibon is the founder of the Haitian-centered clothing line TWAFÈY, which is known for its talisman collections Brooklyn Loves Haiti and Vodounchild.
Dancer, choreographer, singer and visual artist, Sheila Anozier is a performer and artistic collaborator whose main focus and inspiration is the rich tradition of Haitian art. Notable performances have taken Sheila to venues and festivals across the United States and abroad. She serves as choreographer and dancer to Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the fever – a multidisciplinary performance set to music by Haitian American singer-songwriter, Leyla McCalla, and directed by Kiyoko McCrae. She is company choreographer of Brave New World Repertory Theatre. Sheila is creator and artistic director of Vwa Zansèt – a full length theatrical production based on folkloric and Vodou songs of Haiti. The joy that is released through her art has helped her and others express the intersection of cultures that is so important to the immigrant-based communities that make up America.
Sheila Anozier & Atibon Nazaire will present a staged reading of Mountains by Monica Sorelle — a multigenerational drama that explores the relationships between immigrants and their children resulting in a loving portrait of the Haitian community in Miami.
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Steeven Labady is a captivating performer from Haiti who has won the hearts of audiences around the nation. He is the first Haitian to graduate from the National Conservatory of Arts in Dominican Republic. Award-winning dancer, he has worked tirelessly to collaborate on various projects with artists from around the world.
Steeven has been fortunate to work with innovative performers in the field and is constantly on the search for new and exciting opportunities. If you’d like to learn more about the inspiration, style & work that drives Steeven to success, get in touch to learn more.
Steeven Labady will present “Dancing Pains” along with dancer Judea Lowe and Hadler Chery on vocals.
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Nubian Néné is a Montreal native and a New York-based dancer/choreographer who weaves Street & Club dances to create her unique captivating style. Her resilience and hard work stem from her Haitian roots, enabling her to expand into a producer, creative director, curator, visual artist, teacher, and a reliable asset to the innovative Montreal-based multidisciplinary collective: FRGMNT. Her mentors, some of the pioneers of the Street & Club dance cultures, support, encourage, and inspire her to identify cultural references, to be involved and engaged in community, and through pedagogy help carry the weight of her legacy. Nubian Néné performs with Bboyizm Dance Company’s In My Body and Passion Fruit Dance Company’s Trapped (2021) and Dimensions (in progress). Signature Verses Liberation (2022), an ode to architecture, dance, and drawing, is her first visual art installation, and proof of harmony. A hybrid context, with an amalgam of texture, layers, and patterns examined and imagined by the artist. She’s the creator of Waack Bazaar, The Essence Experience, Glasses & Laces, and choreographer and artistic director of A Lady in The House Dance Company.
This guided improvisation solo work is a testament to the brilliance of African ancestry and its relationship to music, rhythms, and storytelling. How one embraces new movement history, and makes it their own. Being from the diaspora of Ayiti, with access to many other dance forms, one has ample ways to find spiritual, physical, and artistic Freedem.