Ogemdi sits in a black top leaned forward. She is a dark skinned Black femme with dark red cornrows.

Ogemdi Ude

I am a Brooklyn-based dance, theater, and interdisciplinary artist creating performances, texts, installation, and media that focus on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. I use movement and voice as a tool for digging up personal and sociocultural narratives, and processing grief. I am interested in how we search for objective “truth” to justify grief; why we seek evidence of our relationships to that which we have lost. How do we find people, cultures, and histories that aren’t there anymore in all the bits that are? I engage the body holistically to re-member: sew together the fissures that trauma creates in our personal narratives.

I work to ensure the wellness of Black, brown, femme and queer communities. This extends to my work as a doula, where I offer critical intervention in the high death rates of birthing people and babies by providing hands on support before, during, and after labor and delivery.

My work has been presented at Kampnagel’s International Summer Festival, The Kitchen, Harlem Stage, BRIC, Abrons Arts Center, ISSUE Project Room, Danspace Project, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Gibney, Center for Performance Research, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, Lewis Center for the Arts, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. I have worked with artists including Raja Feather Kelly, Jessica Grindstaff, Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, iele paloumpis, Shariffa Ali, Marion Spencer, Rebecca Lazier, Stuart Singer, Aaron Landsman, Melanie Lane, Prue Lang, Raven White/BIRDHOUSE, Oskar Eustis, Laurie Woolery, and Lear deBessonet.

I am a 2025 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, 2025 Princess Grace Honoraria in Choreography, 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, 2024 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient, and a Live Feed Residency Artist at New York Live Arts. I have been a 2024/2025 BAX Artist-in-Residence, 2024-2025 Leslie Lohman Artist Fellow, 2022-2024 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, 2021 danceWEB Scholar, 2021 Laundromat Project Create Change Artist-in-Residence, and a 2019-2020 Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU Resident Fellow. In January 2022 I appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine for their annual “25 to Watch” issue. Most recently, I published a book Watch Me in a collection edited by Thomas DeFrantz and Annie-B Parson: Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study published by Dancing Foxes Press and Wesleyan University Press. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in English, Dance, and Theater from Princeton University.

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PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS

Ogemdi posing on the cover of Dance Magazine. She is wearing a pink top with white pants and is smiling with one knee moving towards her chest. “25 To Watch” is written in big purple letters on the lower half of the image.

Upcoming

MAJOR
Prospect Park Boathouse | Brooklyn, NY
Produced by Danspace Project and Prospect Park Alliance
June 19, 2026 at 6pm

MAJOR
Lincoln Center Hearst Plaza | New York, NY
June 24-27, 2026 at 5pm

MAJOR
Jacob’s Pillow | Becket, MA
July 24, 2026 at 5:30pm


General inquiries

ogemdiude@gmail.com
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Touring and Bookings

Sophie Myrtil-McCourty
Lotus Arts Management
sophie@lotusartsmgmt.com

Support

I am a fiscally sponsored artist with Brooklyn Arts Exhange.
Your contribution helps support my process and future performances.
All donations are fully tax deductible.