jaamil olawale kosoko
Voncena’s Spell
June 19–22, 2025
Voncena’s Spell is a performance exploring memory, Black futures, queer histories, and ecological grief. Set aboard the spacecraft Voncena in a near-future galaxy, an artificially intelligent being – named after the artist’s deceased mother – awakens. Through choreography, video installation, and poetry, the performance asks: How can we transform the multi-generational legacy of extraction and surveillance into a thriving, abundant coexistence for all?
Showtimes
jaamil olawale kosoko, courtesy of the artist
Accessibility
About jaamil olawale kosoko
jaamil olawale kosoko is a multi-spirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent originally from Detroit, MI. kosoko moves across the creative realms of performance, video, sculpture, and poetry. Through rooted ritual and spiritual practice, embodied poetics, Black critical studies, and queer theories of the body, kosoko seeks to conjure and craft perpetual modes of freedom, healing, and care.
jaamil’s works—including The (chrysalis) Archives (2024), Black Body Amnesia (2022), Chameleon (The Living Installments) (2020), Séancers (2017), and the Bessie Award-nominated #negrophobia (2015)—have toured extensively to internationally recognized venues and festivals throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Africa.
jaamil is the recipient of several awards including an inaugural Doris Duke Performing Arts and Technology Lab award, Slamdance Jury Prize for Best Experimental Short film, La Becque Artists Residency (Switzerland), two MacDowell Fellowships, Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Choreography, and a Princeton Arts Fellowship among many others. Visit jaamil.com for more information.
Funding
Voncena’s Spell is commissioned by Abrons Arts Center with additional funding and support from Doris Duke Performing Arts and Technology Lab, The Center for the Advancement in Public Action at Bennington College, Pearl Arts Studios (Pittsburgh), MAP Fund, LMCC Extended Life program, MacDowell, Subcircle Residency, La Becque Residency (Switzerland), PCT Fellowship, UT Austin Visiting Lecture Residency, Black Hole Hollow, and friends of kosoko performance studio.