Pretty Dangerous: Four Acts on Womanhood

Pretty Dangerous: Four Acts on Womanhood brings archival memory into powerful contemporary conversation and lived experience. Hosted by UCalgary's Archives & Special Collections in partnership with the Calgary Public Library, this poetry/theatre production inspired by Edith Fowke's archives, invites audiences to experience the archive as a living, breathing source of artistic inspiration.
Created by Iheoma “OMA IS LOUD” Uzomba (2025/26 Artist-in-Residence) the production explores gender performativity by deliberately staging multiple facets of womanhood across four dynamic acts. Inspired by Edith Fowke’s political and folk collections of women’s voices and oral traditions, the work blends spoken word, contemporary dance, and theatre to embody distinct expressions of the feminine experience.
Act One: I Am Woman
Act Two: Prisoner
Act Three: Self-Portrait as Eve
Act Four: Pretty Dangerous
Featuring choreography by Phoenix Mackinnon, Ainsley Suntjens, Lane Sayer, and Enobong Ekpeyong (Burnout Global), and performed alongside a dynamic cast of dancers. Dancers: Abigail Omamogho, Keira Purdy, Ainsley Suntjens, Annastaciya Knoll, Sydney Ramsey, Thabani Ben Ncube and Jedidiah Akinloye Featured music artists: Irene Poole, Olivia Akolo and HDN Jem (Hidden Jem).
The Archives and Special Collections student residency program is funded by the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. The archival residency program brings UCalgary students, archivists, and librarians together through hands-on work with archival collections. The program explores the archive as a space for experiential learning and supports student-driven research, creative inquiry, and original projects grounded in primary sources.
Artist bio: Iheoma “OMA IS LOUD” Uzomba is the 2025/26 Artist-in-Residence of the Archival Residency Project. Her work spans spoken word poetry and multimedia storytelling. Her writing has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rattle Magazine, Palette Poetry, The Chestnut Review, The Shore Poetry and other journals, earning honours such as the Glenna Luschei Award for Poetry (2025) and the Lagos–London Poetry Prize (2022). A two-time winner of the Calgary Poetry Slam (2025) and the Vancouver Poetry Slam (2025), she is a Poetry Translation Center (UK) UNDERTOW Fellow. Find her at iheomauzomba.net

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