The title of Nora Chipaumire’s new dance is a mouthful and, fittingly, loaded with meaning: “lions will roar, swans will fly, angels will wrestle heaven, rains will break: gukurahundi.”

In the multimedia performance, which opened Friday night at the Kumble Theater at the Long Island University Brooklyn campus, Gukurahundi refers to the massacres by the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe in the 1980s. The production, a collaboration with the musician Thomas Mapfumo — he and Ms. Chipaumire represent two generations of exiled Zimbabweans — explores the idea of the African continent today.

Ms. Chipaumire aims to highlight Africa in “lions will roar” — specifically, what she sees as the real Africa and not the branded one. In an artistic statement she wrote that she wanted to address the preconceptions surrounding the continent, including “Africa as violent/Africa as disease and dying/Africa as famine and hunger/Africa as exotic.” But as an exiled woman living in New York, she is also, more subtly perhaps, drawn to issues of cultural dislocation.

Even with the lively Afro-pop sounds of Mr. Mapfumo and his band, the Blacks Unlimited, it’s a lot to take on. Ms. Chipaumire, who is credited with conceiving, choreographing and directing the show, places the musicians in the center of the stage. This is one reason, though not the only one, that the production tips strongly toward a concert. The dancing itself is hard to see — for an hour of the nearly-90-minute work, the stage is obscured by a scrim. It’s watching choreography through gauze.

The piece opens as Romain Tardy’s moving video design — featuring leaves, trees and birds — is screened on the scrim, initially, at least, to striking effect. Ms. Chipaumire and Souleymane Badolo, a daringly supple dancer, appear side by side, shifting through a series of poses, frequently returning to a particular stance: feet spread, one knee bent and arms held behind the back like wings.

Ms. Chipaumire’s deliberate, almost predatory approach is fascinating; she gestures to the audience, flashing a false, knowing smile and signaling with a thumb’s up or a cautionary index finger before turning her back again. Mirroring her view of Africa’s public and private side, Ms. Chipaumire’s flinty, faintly masculine presence seems to be about what you think you see versus what is really there. But this idea is never explored deeply enough; the choreographic whole is undercut by the music. As a director Ms. Chipaumire gives up too much ground to Mr. Mapfumo, and the lion goes out with a whisper.

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