Urban Bush Women (UBW) continues its 40th anniversary fall/winter tour performances and activities. An award-winning ensemble performs SCAT! ….Al & Dot, The Complicated Life of Dot & Al Zoral is directed and co-choreographed by UBW founder Jaworeh Willa Joe Zoral. , a highly acclaimed dance-driven theater production that premiered on the West Coast and in New York. The When Black Women+ Speak (WBW+S) series presents “Building a Net that Works: Creating Your Own Legacy.” Solo Meditations is an intimate series that explores themes of power, innate nobility, and choice. “Legacy of Blood and Liberation: An Exploration of Women’s Art-Making and Community Organizing Practices in the Urban Bush” is an archival exhibition that explores practices created at the intersection of experimentation, boldness, hope, research, and change. Find out the lineage of someone’s ancestors. .
UBW will celebrate its 40th anniversary with a West Coast premiere in November. ….The Complicated Life of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zoller at the Mark Taper Forum held at the Music Center in Los Angeles, California. This jazz epic chronicles American life in the ’40s and ’50s through the Jim Crow South, with Zoller’s childhood in a black neighborhood in Kansas City and the Great Migration. The vibrant jazz club experience is presented in conjunction with Center Theater Group and includes live music by Craig Harris, choreography by Jawor Zoller and Vincent Thomas, and dramaturgy by Talvin Wilkes. scat! ” is scheduled to premiere in New York in February 2025.
Based on UBW’s CCI Producing Program for Women of Color (CCI 2.0), Project Producer and Curator Rylin Robinson and 40th Anniversary Associate Producer and CCI 2.0 Producing Fellow Pia Monique Murray will bring together UBW Producers Jonathan Produced in collaboration with D. Seko. Artistic leader, producer, and partner of the When Black Women+ Speak fall/winter lineup. Remaining locations in the series include Harlem Stage Gatehouse and the Louis Armstrong House Museum Jazz Room in partnership with LAHM and Queens College School of the Arts. Panelists include Regina Bain, Paloma McGregor and Marlene Ramirez-Cancio.
Created specifically for 92NY’s multi-week residency, Solo Meditations features iconic solos and duets from UBW’s wide-ranging repertoire, sharing embodied stories and the generosity of communal connection. Emphasizes the clarity and character of movement. Select productions will feature live music by guest artists including Grace Gall Calambay, Luciana Padmore, Manchild Black, Jerome Jennings and more.
Continuing the tradition of amplifying the underrepresented voices and unheard stories of Black women+, additional tour dates, performances, and workshops are announced. This is a risk and a promise to bring a Black presence to the table. The highlight of UBW’s 40th anniversary celebration, this performance is a before-and-after look to celebrate 40 years of being at the forefront of movement and social action. The performance includes elements of UBW performances such as Visible, Women’s Resistance, and co-artistic directors Channon Judson and Mame Diarra Spaeth’s dance theater work Haint Blue Episode Chapters.
About Urban Bush Women
Urban Bush Women (UBW) is a groundbreaking Black women-led theater dance company and social action ensemble founded in 1984 by visionary choreographer Jawor Willa Jo Zoller. Through its mission to engage artists, activists, audiences, and communities through performance, artist development, education, and community engagement, this award-winning nonprofit organization operates across the United States, as well as in Asia, Australia, Canada, and Germany. , and has also performed in the South. America, Europe and Senegal (in collaboration with Germaine Acogny and her all-male company JANT-BI). For 40 years, UBW has been a powerhouse and amplifier of Black women+ stories. UBW impacts the entire ecosystem of the arts by promoting artistic heritage. Projecting the voices of deaf people and people of color. Bringing attention to and addressing equity issues in the dance field and in the United States as a whole. It provides a platform and acts as a conduit for experimental art makers.
Some of the signature programs run by UBW include the Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), BOLD (Builders, Organizers & Leaders through Dance), and the Choreographic Center Initiative Produce Program. Now directed by artistic leaders Channon Judson and Mame Diarra Spaeth, UBW combines radical performance, deep engagement, and ancestral knowledge from the African diaspora to create an urgent, forward-looking and , producing essential power.
Photo by Jason Williams
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