Nkeiruka Oruche
BdA Chief of Import & Export
Nkeiruka Oruche is a cultural organizer, producer and multidisciplinary performer of Igbo descent, who specializes in Afro-Urban culture and its intersections with personal identity, public wealth and sociopolitical action. Since 2002, Nkeiruka has played a crucial role in ushering African culture unto the global stage from working as Editor-in-Chief of Nigerianentertainment.com, a digital magazine, and as co-founder of One3snapshot, an art collective.
In 2018, she wrote and created ‘What Had Happened Was… An Afro Urban Musical’, a hot-blooded urban dance theater piece exploring a timeline of afro urban dance and music from 1910 to the present.
She is a Kikwetu Honors Awardee, a 2018 NYFA Immigrant Artist Fellow, recipient of The Creative Work Fund, and the MAP Fund. Other grants and awards include Kenneth Rainin Foundation, California Arts Council, The Zellerbach Family Foundation, The East Bay Community Foundation, Dancer’s Group/CA$H, ACTA Living Cultures, City of Oakland and Akonadi Foundation.
Currently, Nkeiruka is focused on expanding and sustaining grassroots change-making and community health through the production, performance and embodiment of art and culture. She is a co-founder of BoomShake, a social justice and music education organization, and Director of Afro Urban Society, an incubator and presenter of Afro-Urban performing and visual arts, culture, media, and social discourse.