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The Nikki Giovanni Immersive Experience

December 9, 2025

Poster for the “Nikki Giovanni Immersive Experience,” featuring a stylized collage portrait of Nikki Giovanni with musical elements and vinyl records, along with event details for December 9, 2025 at The Cube, Virginia Tech.

December 9 • 10am – 5pm

The Cube at the Center for the Arts
Open to the public

The Nikki Giovanni Immersive Experience combines her poetry (as recorded by Giovanni at different times in her life) with audio soundscapes and motion graphic projections. This is an interdisciplinary collaboration between a composer, designers, literary experts, embodied performance artists, and creative technologists, converging to create a multi-sensory experience. Each projection will be crafted to capture the essence of Giovanni's poetry, drawing inspiration from its themes, imagery, and rhythmic cadence. Additionally, we utilized the library's motion capture studios in collaboration with faculty and students from the School of Performing Arts to develop visual avatars featured in select final motion graphic works. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with the art on a deeper level, allowing themselves to be enveloped by the interplay of sight and sound, word and image.

Last June, we displayed the poems "Ego Tripping" and "Nikki Rosa" as part of the Black Love is Black Wealth remembrance event. This December will include revised versions of this work as well as additional poems.

Poetry and Readings: Nikki Giovanni 

Poetic Arrangement: Brittney S. Harris and Charles Nichols 

Music: Charles Nichols 

Embodied Movement: Brittney S. Harris 

Motion Capture: Trevor Finney and Alice Macanga

Motion Graphics and Graphic Design: Meaghan Dee, Trevor Finney, Demetrya Dye, and Lexy Altieri

Project Advisor: Gena E. Chandler, PhD

Project Management: Meaghan Dee

ICAT Technical Support: Gustavo Araoz, David Franusich, Brandon Hale, and Tanner Upthegrove 

Additional Thanks to Kelsey Hammer, Ella Shaffer, and Morgan Weidling for participating in creative brainstorming sessions.

Special thanks to Virginia Fowler for permission, time, and poetry consultation. 

Additional thanks to Virginia Tech, President Sands, the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT), and the Center for the Arts for supporting this project.  

And thank you to Nikki Giovanni for her incredible life and legacy.