Philly Fringe 2025: FringeArts presents nora chipaumire’s Dambudzo

Dambudzo combines visual art, music, movement, dance, and performance art in ways that contest genre labels widely in use. Meanwhile, the show’s title conveys conflict. Dambudzo means “trouble” in Shona, a Bantu language. It also refers to the Zimbabwean writer and thinker Dambudzo Marechera, whose work “deals radically with the effects of the colonial project on the individual, the family, all the wounds it produces on us,” according to chipuamire. The relationship between Europe and Africa “has always been so problematic” that “trouble” comes to mind. “In the context of the decolonial process,” chipuamire adds, “we also have to understand trouble as the fact that we, the great Africa, are asking the former empire to face up to the situation.”

I knew all this in advance; it made me want to attend Dambudzo and expect to be uncomfortable. However, the nature of the discomforts was a surprise. “Immersive” is a slippery concept in the performing arts, despite its growing popularity, and Dambudzo takes things to a new level. Shows describing themselves as immersive usually offer a series of performances or interactive installations along a guided path. Dambudzo dissolved the boundary between performers and audience, instead creating a shifting shared environment.

This one was confusing, loud, and hot. Dambudzo transformed the FringeArts space by disposing of seats and the concept of a stage. Someone was at a DJ table, someone else played saxophone, and viewers gathered around the edge of colored partitions secured by ropes. Ten performers moved beyond, the form and tone of their movement sliding between fight, play, and dance. Sounds layered and mixed, from thumping bass and barking dogs to the performers’ shouts and musical instruments.

It was hard to see or discern what was happening. But there was no one thing to see in Dambudzo, which contained no linear throughline and constantly changed. Crew members lit the performers with hand lanterns at torso or knee level, casting the rest of the space in shadow and darkness. Viewers clustered haphazardly as the performers moved through the space. There were disco balls, soccer, and mud. The shabini’s walls moved, redistributing bodies and space. A pair of women in long skirts shouted “Hallelujah!” and “Hosannah!”

Dambudzo was nothing like I have ever seen. Like much boundary-pushing art, it was more interesting than enjoyable. Powerful work can be an uncomfortable experience. Chipuamire’s work challenges stereotypes about Africa, Blackness, and Black bodies, and Dambudzo is touring festivals that favor work and creators descending from white Europeans. Immersing myself in it quickly exhausted me, though the performers showed no signs of fatigue over the nearly two-hour runtime. Many performances claim to be immersive, and even more aim to engage with important issues, introduce viewers to ideas and cultures, or transcend genre in new and meaningful ways. Dambudzo goes deeper and further to position the audience within an unstable alternate reality, stirring up the best kinds of trouble.

Above: A Dambudzo ensemble member. (Photo by Marie Staggat.)