Event Details
We are so thrilled to end our 2018 Season with a world premiere work by internationally recognized hip hop dancer & choreographer Amirah Sackett!
A new full-length work, “Al Nafs,” will premiere; headlining a night of Dance Crash repertory.
This project is presented by Moraine Valley Community College, made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art as part of the Building Bridges: Arts, Culture and Identity program from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters.
Ms. Sackett was honored as one of the first female hip-hop artists to receive the Jerome Travel/ Study grant in 2008 and traveled to Rotterdam, Holland to study and train at Hip Hop Huis, a center in Europe for hip-hop artists. She curated the international festival for women in Hip- Hop, B-Girl Be in 2009-2010 at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, MN. In 2011, Amirah 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”. Amirah and her dancers, Iman and Khadijah, were honored to receive the prestigious Sage Cowles Award “Best Ensemble Performance” for the performance of her choreography “Mourning in America” in 2013. In 2014, Amirah 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 April 2016, Amirah was honored to be part of “Caravanserai- American Voices”, a Midwest tour of American Muslim hip-hop artists, including The Reminders, Dj Man-O-Wax and fellow dancer Mary Mar a.k.a B- Girl Mama. In 2016, Amirah and her work “We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic” reached viral video fame, after being featured in videos online by PopSugar Celebrity, Huffington Post, AJ+, and Upworthy with millions of views each. She was honored to perform and lecture at Harvard University as a guest of the Graduate School of Education. She was chosen to be a Tedx speaker at TedxAmoskeagMillyard in New Hampshire. Huffington Post featured Amirah in their article “17 Muslim American Women Who Made America Great In 2016”.