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Okwui Okpokwasili & Peter Born

@sweatvariant

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The collaborative practice of Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born. A spectacle of radical intimacy.
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Thank you to all who came to experience ‘my tongue is a blade’ last week in Doha for the inaugural Art Basel @artbasel in Qatar.

Photographs by Seeing Things Agency for Art Basel.

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This month we will be engaging in our durational performance practice ‘my tongue is a blade’ at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar @artbasel on February 3rd, 2026 at the Bin Jelmood House at the Msheireb Museum.

Our US premiere of the piece will be at Hudson Hall co-presented with @ps21chatham as part of their new festival The Dark Saturday, February 21st, 2026 1:00—4:00 pm, and Sunday, February 22nd, 2026 1:00—4:00 pm.

This iteration of ‘my tongue is a blade’ will be performed by Okwui Okpokwasili, Bria Bacon @briabacon , Kris Lee @mellowbastard and AJ Wilmore @aj.i.a .

Sweat Variant is interested in building a spectacle of radical intimacy, where both performers and audience are acknowledged as being locked in a mutual gaze. We build gestural vocabularies and narrative frameworks that are concerned with the problem of memory in the inherent instability of the construction of a persona.

We hope to activate a space that allows the audience to question who they are looking at and how they are looking. We hope this creates a critical space of wonderment, of uncertainty and of mystery. It is in this space that we believe we can see each other anew.

Performance details for our US premiere at PS 21 Chatham can be found in our bio.

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Presented as part of The Whitney’s @whitneymuseum Edges of Ailey, “let slip, hold sway,” centers Blackness and queerness, as we steward new socialities in a fraught world.

We thank our audience for being our guests and embracing this world we have created, providing ballast for this work to continue. We would like to thank Adrienne Edwards @adynyc and her team for seeing us through, and connecting us to the lineage of Alvin Ailey through the past into the present.

Furthermore, we would like to thank our performers/collaborators Katrina Reid @kattyrealness Bria Bacon @briabacon and Kris Lee @mellowbastard for their generosity of spirit throughout this process.

Though this work has come to a close, it has opened the dialogue for future iterations that we at Sweat Variant look forward to sharing with you.

Costumes by @dr_ipping

Photos taken by Maria Baranova @photo_by_baranova
#whitneymuseum #edgesofailey #okwuiokpokwasili #peterborn #sweatvariant #performance #performanceart

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This season we are thrilled to welcome Brooklyn-based Sweat Variant to the Lotus Roster! Sweat Variant describes the collaborative practice of Nigerian-American performer, choreographer and writer Okwui Okpokwasili and American director, designer and filmmaker Peter Born. As Sweat Variant, they will continue to shape the international performance scene after nearly three decades of collaborative work. We are honored to be part of their next chapter.

Photo Credit: Tony Turner

#okwuiokpokwasili #peterborn #sweatvariant #lotusroster #performingarts #lotusartsmgmt

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In Maillon hautepierre

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