Wednesday
OCT 24
Page 18
7:30 pm
Amirah Sackett
Onstage Seating
Muslim American hip-hop dancer
This project is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how NEA grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. This project is supported, in part, by an award from the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission.
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OCT 24 | Amirah Sackett
There will be no intermission during this performance. Amirah Sackett’s performance at the Lied Center will consist of two pieces, both based on the poetry of 13th-century scholar, poet and mystic, Rumi, titled Love Embraces All and Qadr. Members of KU’s UNITY Dance will perform with Amirah during Love Embraces All. Sackett is an internationally recognized hip-hop dancer, choreographer and teacher. She was honored as one of the first female hip-hop artists to receive the Jerome Travel and Study Grant in 2008, and she traveled to Rotterdam, Holland to study and train at Hip Hop Huis. Sackett curated the international festival for women in hip-hop, B-Girl Be, in 2009–10 at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis. In 2011, she formed the all-female, American Muslim trio called “We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic.” They were featured in rapper Brother Ali’s music video “Mourning in America,” for which Amirah and her dancers, Iman and Khadijah, received the prestigious Sage Cowles Award for Best Ensemble Performance in 2013. In 2014, Sackett traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh as part of “Next Level,” a hip-hop cultural exchange program by the U.S. State Department and University of North Carolina. In 2016, her work “We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic” reached viral video fame after being featured on POPSUGAR Celebrity, The Huffington Post, AJ+ and Upworthy with millions of views each. Sackett was honored to be a TEDx speaker, and a guest performer and lecturer at Harvard University. The Huffington Post featured her in the article “17 Muslim American Women Who Made America Great In 2016.” She recently traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii for a residency, funded by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic arts, at a museum dedicated to Islamic art from around the world called Shangri La. She continues to tour, teach and perform around the country and in her hometown of Chicago. Sackett believes hip-hop culture gives voice to those often unheard and is a way to uplift, inspire and bring change to those communities that need it the most. After the performance, there will be a question-and-answer session with Amirah.