Nimia Gracious

Nimia Gracious is an afro-swiss performer, participatory social arts practitioner, de-colonial researcher with her focal around emancipation through communal rituals. Since graduating her BA honours degree in Urban & Contemporary dance certified by the University of West London in 2021, she is working in the independent performance art scene. Nimia is based in Zürich, Switzerland, where she organises ballroom community events. Fostering environments, which center immigrant QTBIPOC* and benefiting their situation within the omnipresent structural oppressive mechanisms. Her big motivator is the mission to transgress gaps in terms of missing access points to the state subsidised cultural sector in the swiss landscape. Her artistic practise involves tackling the dance styles voguing and twerking, which both are representing the demographics in quest, and frames them into a contemporary performance art context, without commodifying the dissident bodies and art practices of her collaborators. She wants to highlight those who are representing the community responsible for the artistic craft itself.  Overall she is distinctly informed by somatic approaches/ rituals revolving around her spiritual connection to afro-trans ancestry and resonates with different transcontinental, indigenous, varying forms of what we would call „queer“ in the modern context. Furthermore, she is touring internationally as an interpret in several theatre productions. In summer 2023 Nimia participated in the DanceWEB residency program with a scholarship from Pro Helvetia.

Foto credit: James Bantone