Urban Bush Women (UBW), the legendary Brooklyn-based performance ensemble and dance company founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in 1984, continues its full-calendar 40th anniversary season with a week-long series of free presentations at Lincoln Center, Friday, July 26 through Sunday, August 4. While the award-winning Zollar, whose woman-centered perspective emanated from the provocative Black Arts Movement which sprang up at the intersection of art, politics, gender, and race, has passed the torch to co-artistic directors and company members Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Spies, UBW’s tradition of thought-provoking and engaging performative experiences continues.
Zollar says she feels comfortable passing the torch to this younger generation because, between them, Judson and Spies have a wealth of experience both at UBW and other dance venues, including Broadway and Alvin Ailey. But also, she says, during the COVID-19 pandemic the two showed the exciting and varied artistic vision and leadership initiative that folks will get a taste of during the upcoming program series. On July 26, “How We Got to the Funk” kicks everything off with an interactive workshop that sweeps the audience off their feet and takes them on a whirlwind exploration of African American social dances from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. Joyously led by Zollar, this event allows folks to learn new moves or recall old ones in a session that is more a party than a dance class. UBW’s Pia Monique Murray explains that in the best UBW tradition, it’s a free-flowing, come-as-you-are thing: “All folks have to do is show up, grove together, feed off each other’s joyous energy, and ultimately just have a good time.”
A similar spirit prevails during UBW’s Builders, Organizers, and Leaders in Dance, or BOLD, workshops, titled “Mindful Bodies & Reflective Practices,” on July 31 and August 4 at the Griffin Sidewalk Studio of David Geffen Hall. The two workshops are designed to show that dance is accessible to everyone regardless of level of experience or ability. The Mindful Body workshops highlight what is described as the organization’s somatic principles which combine movement and dance with a mindful and restorative practice. “A workshop focusing on self-care, rejuvenation, and (re) constructing healthful images,” it’s an experience that has something for everyone as an event that requires only “a willingness to exhale.”
Murray, who wears several creative hats including that of associate producer, has also brought together “When Black Women Speak,” a compelling conversation that explores the nuances of identity, community, values, and success among BIPOC women and producers, on July 31 at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium.
Closing the series on Aug. 4 at Hearst Plaza is UBW’s magical site-responsive dance theater work “Haint Blu/Episodic Chapters.” The name comes from the sky- or sea-like color used by the Gullah people in the South to paint houses to ward off spirits. Haint, which stands for ghosts, uses dance, text, original music, and visual installation with what might be described as a sense of “critical fabulation.” This writer first experienced Haint Blu in a tree-covered Harlem church courtyard where it moved from place to place, creating a mix of mystery and magic. It promises to do the same during UBW’s Lincoln Center performance.
In fact, all of the Lincoln Center events are in the best tradition of UBW, whose website contains a manifesto proclaiming, “Telling Black women’s stories, words don’t do it justice…Language does not amount to the experience, it doesn’t have the nuance of our tone. The experience of UBW is that tone…We are Blackness as an asset. Blackness as an expansive idea…validating the complexity and intersectionality of our experiences.”
After all, UBW is a company with a strong commitment to community engagement and artistic achievement, whose critically acclaimed repertory includes such provocative dances as Zollar’s “Batty Moves,” “Give Your Hands to Struggle,” “Shelter,”a poignant depiction of the homeless crisis, and “Walking With Pearl: Africa Diaries,” a tribute to Trinidadian-born dance pioneer Pearl Primus. The company was, apparently, ahead of its time when two decades ago it presented a dance event at the time of the Republican National Convention, titled “Are We a Democracy?” In addition, there is the provocative inspiration of iconic women-of-color writers like Ntozake Shange, Jewel Gomez, and Jamaica Kincaid. Zollar says that tradition continues under this new leadership, as does UBW’s commitment to the power of community, a concept that has always been an integral part of the company’s mission and all are in full bloom as part of the “Summer in the City” programming. For more info, visit www.lincolncenter.org.