Marisa Hayes: Border crossing seems to be such an important theme in your work. You’re currently performing and teaching across multiple continents, but you’re also working across different media: film, various types of performance spaces… This summer at the Centre national de la danse for the performance of #Punk, the public surrounded you in the round and we were all at the same level; you allowed us to share the space with you.Nora Chipaumire: That’s part of the philosophy, really. I’ve always struggled with the proscenium stage, with this very European canon of the dancer over there, the public over there. I know everybody has tried to engage this concept in their own way, but I’m really committed to the idea of democracy and how do you democratize from a very African point of view. Everybody on the same level and the space more circular than square: this is something I return to again and again, in hopes of finding equality, because for me, the audience is the performer. I create the situation in which the audience performs.Marisa Hayes: This very intimate approach creates a dialogue with your performance and functions so well in tandem with the autobiographical references in your work, allowing us to empathize or change our consciousness by sharing in this experience, of which the space is so important.Nora Chipaumire: I’m glad to hear it! We are here in Ghent now and we’re going to perform it in a cafeteria. In Pantin [at the CND], we had to create the space that would allow for this process…