Lead Productions

Jessica Nupen is a dancer, choreographer and director based in Germany. Born in Johannesburg to anti-apartheid activist parents, Nupen’s work is heavily inspired by her South African background and she has been named one of the top 100 most influential Africans in Germany.

Her work incorporates learned contemporary dance-theatre practices with pertinent political themes, expressed in striking creations and has received recognition through celebrated tours of Europe, the US and Southern Africa, ably supported by artists including William Kentridge, Spoek Mathambo, Jürgen Schadeberg, Denis Goldberg, Dan Halter, Philipp Miller, Milo Pablo Momm, Peter Konwitschny, Leila El-Kayem and Jane Taylor.

Her pieces have been performed on major stages in Germany and received features in publications and organisations such as CNN Inside Africa, Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Business Day, and Forbes Woman Africa. Jessica’s work has received funding from all the major cultural ministries and foundations in Germany including the Federal Fund for Culture and German Foreign Office.

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Significant Artistic Productions of the last 4 years:

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The Lions 2017: World Premiere / Lichthof Theater / resonanzraum, Hamburg

How to Pina Bausch 2017: World Premiere / resonanzraum, Hamburg

Don’t Trust the Border 2018: World Premiere / Kampnagel K2, Hamburg

Dance of the Flying Knives 2018: World Premiere / William Kentridge Centre Less Good Idea, JHB

Christoph Colomb 2019: World Premiere / Theater Lübeck

The Nose 2020: World Premiere / Kampnagel K6 (postponed to October 2021 as Hybrid Film, Performance)

exhibIT 2020: World Premiere / Kunsthalle St. Annen, Lübeck

Spheres & Disruption 2020: World Premiere / Deichtorhallen, Hamburg

(Cleaning Out) The Colonial Closet 2021: World Premiere 30,31 July 2021 / Lübeck-Online

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CURRENT & upcoming performances

CorpOrale 2020-Present: https://vimeo.com/496268331 A transformation from bodies into an orchestra, a sound-performative installation maintaining the same characteristics, research, and compositional principle. CorpOrale is currently ready to be distributed as a structured 35-minute performance.. and is currently looking for funds or residencies to be able to expand it.

BLUE 2020-Present: https://vimeo.com/529345124 Blue is a video art work that was born during the first lockdown in collaboration with the director and video maker Ivan Neri.I intend to transform blue into a performative installation, reconstructing inside a hypothetical exhibition space the cellar in which I closed myself to work during those interminable and dark weeks of lockdown. Thus recreating that intimate place suspended in time, and inviting one spectator at a time to enter and immerse themselves in this intimate, suspended, and solitary space.
-video and performative installation available for distribution.

Embodied space 2021: Embodied space is a long durational and site-specific performance conceived in 2019 but still never performed. Embodied space has been selected by the Marina Abramovic Institute to take part in a group exhibition dedicated to long durational performance at the Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan, during the Milan design week (it should have happened last April but due to the covid the date has yet to be defined). Last April 2021 I was selected with this project to take part in a 1-month residency at the Q21, Museum quarter Vienna. A video project from the work Embodied space was born from this residency, in collaboration with Ivan Neri, but we are still in the editing process.
-this performance is available for distribution.

Jessica Nupen

Significant Artistic Productions of the last 4 years:

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