Collaborations

Set in 1987 Uganda, Tomorrow Never Came follows Lawrence Muhumuza, a war hero struggling with the personal cost of the liberation he fought for. Torn between duty, desire, and the life he is expected to lead, Lawrence is caught in a web of political tension, secrecy, and forbidden love.

HERE Arts Center (New York, NY)
June 2025
Written by Jedidiah Mugarura
Directed by Ogemdi Ude
Featuring: Dillon Daniel Mutyaba, Imani Pearl, Jason Kisare, Natasha Hakata, Odera Adimorah, Petrina Ampeire, Shiro Kihagi

Join six Black singles aboard the S.S. Chiaroscuro for a chocolate singles cruise to…. nowhere! Guided by the wise and mischievous Paul Paul Legba, this “love boat” ultimately explodes into a dark comedy. Aboard, everyone wrestles with their own pursuit of love, desire, and need to be seen. Written by Black Arts Movement writer Aishah Rahman, the play is named after an Italian artistic term referring to a stark contrast between dark and light. A play crafted in a world struggling to battle isolation, we invite you to join us on the journey to finding love.

The Flea (New York, NY)
May-June 2025
Written by Aishah Rahman
Directed by abigail jean-baptiste
Movement Coordinated by Ogemdi Ude

Port(al) delves into the rich history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, from its bustling port days to its ongoing evolution. Through a confluence of song, movement, and immersive storytelling, Port(al) guides audiences through the currents of time, where echoes of the past, the realities of the present, and the dreams of the future converge.

Agger Fish Building at the Brooklyn Navy Yard (Brooklyn, NY) / May 2025
PS21 Chatham (Chatham, NY) / June 2025
Co-created by Dianne Berkun Menaker, Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, and Jessica Grindstaff
Co-choreographed by Ogemdi Ude

In 1974, 1998, and 2021, three different men in a South Brooklyn railroad apartment write, read, fuck, flirt, eat, and fight at the same time.

The Fires is a surreal new play about being a somebody in a world of other somebodies–while trying on love.

Soho Rep (New York, NY)
May-June 2024
Written and Directed by Raja Feather Kelly
Associate Direction by Ogemdi Ude

When the opportunity arises for Vuyo to masquerade as a girl to showcase their exceptional singing prowess in a national choir competition, the entire community embarks on a remarkable journey of transformation. In the face of deep-seated fear and uncertainty, Vuyo and their choir-mates embark on a journey of self-discovery, forging an unbreakable bond that carries them all through the highs and lows of the competition and life in newly post-apartheid South Africa.

Rites and Reason Theatre at Brown University (Providence, RI)
January 2025
Directed by Shariffa Ali
Performed by Vuyo Sotashe and Kineta Kunutu
Dramaturgy by Joanna Ruth Evans
Choreography by Ogemdi Ude

to love the rise/pt.2 is a multimedia dance project grounded in physical practice, collective imagination, and relationships. The collaborative process has developed through an apocalypse previously imagined, and now lived, offering a feminine, feminist vision of a world built from the detritus of our current one. Through a collage of movement, vocalizations, live installation, photography, film and carpentry, a new Utopia is composted, built and traversed by the collective.

Roulette Intermedium (Brooklyn, NY)
October 2022
Choreography and direction by marion spencer
Performed by Ogemdi Ude, Kimiko Tanabe, s. lumbert, slowdanger
Photo by Whitney Browne

In place of catastrophe, a clear night sky explores transgenerational resilience within a disability justice framework through voice and movement.

Directed by iele paloumpis
Created and performed in collaboration with the Core Cast:
Marielys Burgos-Meléndez, Seta Morton, Alejandra Ospina, M. Rodriguez, Ogemdi Ude, Krishna Washburn, and Marýa Wethers
Narrative Audio Description: Alejandra Ospina
Guest Singers: Rae De Vine, Joanna Groom, CJ Holm, Samita Sinha, and Adrien Lorenzo Weibgen

._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION] — part expanded cinema installation, part evening-length performance–marks the end of SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY’s THE CHAMBER SERIES and is organized around scores. Ranging from direct commands to subtle interventions the performers and audience members have to negotiate how to respond to the power at play. To the artist, BDSM’s explicit rules around submission and domination offer the opportunity to recognize more clearly how in our lives “pleasure, love, desire, violence, and anything that could be dark or dangerous are in conversation with each other at all times.”

Performance Space New York (New York, NY)
Created by SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY
October 2021
Performers include: Ogemdi Ude, Trinity Dawn Bobo, Estado Flotante, Miguel Angel Guzmán, and Reed Rushes
Photo by Maria Baranova

Haegue Yang is known for genre-defying, multimedia installations that interweave a range of materials and methods, historical references, and sensory experiences. Handles, Yang’s installation commissioned for MoMA’s Marron Atrium, features six sculptures with daily performance activations, dazzling geometries, and the play of light and sound, to create a ritualized, complex environment with both personal and political resonance.

Created by Haegue Yang for the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY)
Performers include: Martita Abril, Kristel Baldoz, Christiana Cefalu, Ayano Elson, Sb Fuller, Jessica Gaines, Jessie Gold, Honey Jernquist, Delaney McDonough, Lydia Okrent, Alex Romania, Ogemdi Ude, Vanessa Vargas, Anh Vo, and Nicki Wong
Fall 2019-Spring 2020

Éva Mag transforms The Gym at Judson Memorial Church into a factory for the production of clay bodies. The artist creates a durational work in this historic space, celebrated for its role in the evolution of postmodern dance by artists such as Yvonne Rainer, Robert Morris and Simone Forti, whose groundbreaking work explored everyday movement, spontaneity, and the relationship between bodies and objects. Together with ten movement artists and performers, the ensemble experiments with improvisation and sculpts ten clay sculptures out of textile skins.

Created by Éva Mag for Performa 19
In collaboration with performers: Ogemdi Ude, Elinor Tollerz Brattby, Rosemary Carroll, Matty Davis, Eryka Dellenbach, Sarah Donnelly, Kristen De Lillo, Alex Romania, Rakia Seaborn, and Anh Vo
Judson Memorial Church (New York, NY)
November 2019

A public improvisational score featuring four hours of intimacy, contact, and consent among 24 artists, each with their distinct gender and sexual identities and unique backgrounds. The installation was performed as part of the World Pride celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Stone Wall riots. Performed in the World Trade Center Oculus.

Directed by Raven White of BIRDHOUSE In collaboration with musician Jonah Udall
June 2019
Photos and footage by Liana Kleinman

Music video for ‘Hush’ a single by Lola Scott

Directed and produced by Hannah Dougherty
Choreographed and performed by Ogemdi Ude
Melbourne, Australia
March 2018

Music video for “More Than This” - the first single from Amaya Laucirica’s album ‘Rituals’

Directed, filmed, and edited by Geoffrey O'Connor
Choreographed and performed by Ogemdi Ude
Melbourne, Australia
June 2017

In this new work for the Adelaide Biennial, Gebhardt immerses the viewer in a square room with four large projections. Each screen holds a familiar Australian landscape: a salt lake, a rock formation, a sandy desert and a waterfall in a forest. The images meet one another along matching horizon lines. This allows for a continuum in both time and place, which is emphasized by the choreographed sequences of ten dancers in each environment. Forty individuals from diverse backgrounds have been chosen to expand normative ideas of the body. The ritual dance movements that unfold on screen amongst the ensemble have been scripted by Gebhardt to represent the becoming and decline of the human in and of the natural world.

Created by Amos Gebhardt
Choreography by Melanie Lane
4 channel video artwork, sound, 34 minutes
2018