Onwu Di Njo: grief songs workshop with Nkeiruka Oruche

Drawing from her Igbo ancestry and culture, this workshop invites participants to connect to their ancestral cultures and explore/create song or spoken word as tools for grief and commemoration of loved ones who have died. Onwu Di Njo is part of Nkeiruka Oruche’s ‘Obi gbawara’m//My Heart Shattered or What happens after I die?’ (OGB) researching and documenting traditions of death and grief in Igbo culture, and the African diaspora. The session will feature an introduction/context, song sharing, personal connection, and creation time inspired by the project.

2025 World Arts West Dance Festival

The 2025 World Arts West Dance Festival is a 3-weekend global dance & music festival that focuses on the theme of “Dance as Health and Healing,” exploring what constitutes a healthy community and how we use dance for connection and solidarity.

About Nkeiruka Oruche

Nkeiruka Oruche is an Igbo multimedia creative, and cultural producer. She created and directed ‘Mixtape of the Dead & Gone #1’ dance-theater comedy about death and igbo cosmology. She is founder and director of Afro Urban Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to boosting art, media, and the tough-but-necessary conversations of the African diaspora. She co-founded and stewarded BoomShake Music, a social justice and music liberation organization. In 2023, she was on SF Playhouse ‘Nollywood Dreams’ creative team. Oruche was a Dance/USA Artist Fellow, Kikwetu Honors Awardee, a NYFA Immigrant Artist Fellow, and YBCA 100 Honoree, and has received awards from Creative Work Fund, MAP Fund, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and California Arts Council. Her work has been featured in BBC Africa, Goethe-Institut, Fjord Review, Coal City University-Enugu, and Oakland Museum of California.