Gaudanse to Present NANIBU World Premiere in April
The performance will take place on Friday, April 18, 2025 at 8pm at Marigny Opera House.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 28, 2025
New York City and New Orleans-based nonprofit dance and performing arts organization gaudanse and its Founding Artistic Director Imani Gaudin will present the world premiere of nanibu, a dance work, on Friday, April 18, 2025 at 8pm at Marigny Opera House, 725 St Ferdinand Street, New Orleans, LA. Tickets range from $10- $40 based on seating and can be purchased now.
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nanibu is a dance-based performing arts and theater work merging movement, text, sound, and immersive staging to explore tradition, love, and sacrifice. In the powerful kingdom of Nagaua, where love and peace reign, prosperity comes at a devastating cost. Forced to uphold this legacy, Nanibu must navigate grief, duty, and destiny, ascending the throne forever in mourning. nanibu allows audiences to reimagine what fantasy and mythical worlds look like when centered on Black bodies, challenging narratives of who belongs in epic storytelling.
Imani Gaudin is an imaginative, multidisciplinary performing artist, choreographer and creative director. As the Founding Artistic Director of gaudanse (Gaudanse, Inc.)-a 501(c)3 nonprofit interdisciplinary dance and performing arts organization- Imani is dedicated to promoting accessibility and sustainability in the world of dance and the performing arts. Imani was recently commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts and the Hudson Yards Hell's Kitchen Alliance to premiere jakob&imani, a live, durational, visual and performing arts work in collaboration with visual artist Jakob Vitale at Bella Abzug Park in Hell's Kitchen, New York that was free to the public and engaged both young and adult audience members from the community to participate in the live performance. As an Artist in Residence at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, she developed her new works, mamihlapinatapai, as well as, nanibu. As a performer, Imani is currently a movement artist and collaborator with TRIBE under the direction Shamel Pitts.
Imani studied dance at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts where she was awarded a Certificate of Artistry in dance. She then graduated with honors from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, SUNY where she studied abroad at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, Academie Voor Theater en Dans and received the Bert Terborgh Dance Award for Leadership and Excellence in Dance, the Minority Scholarship and the Adopt-a-Dancer Scholarship. She received the Delta Sigma Theta Artie-Rising Star Award and is a National Performance Network's 2023 NPN Take Notice Fund Awardee supported by Ford Foundation. She trained at Juilliard, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, where she received the Homer Avila Scholarship Award, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem, b12 (Germany), Orsolina (Italy) and Point Park University. She is also a Pepatián Dancing Futures 2024 AIR. She created a dance film, Art of Elegance, Vol. 1 for One Day Dance Season 4 that premiered at the TANK NYC. She has taught dance to New York public school students through the Battery Dance education program and has served as a choreography coach. She serves on multiple artists curatorial panels and is a board member for T2 Dance. Imani's early dance training was through the NOBA (New Orleans Ballet Association) dance programs and she performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as a member of the RRAAM Society and Kai Knight's Silhouettes, where she also trained.
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