FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Makeda Smith
UBW Marketing Manager
msmith@urbanbushwomen.org
(718) 398-4537
URBAN BUSH WOMEN BACK ON TOUR
Brooklyn, New York – January 21, 2022 – After the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brooklyn-based dance-theater ensemble Urban Bush Women (UBW) returns to the live concert stage in January 2022. Since March 2020, UBW has utilized technology to mount its first-ever virtual program, The Artist Journal, which combines informal performance, audience interaction, and festive communal dance through Zoom. Starting in January 2022, the Company reconnects with live audiences in a five-city national tour of its program, Legacy + Lineage + Liberation, featuring new work, Haint Blu (proscenium version), as well as the return of its dance-theater work, Hair & Other Stories.
The Urban Bush Women Company in I Don’t Know but I Been Told, If You Keep on Dancin’ You Never Grow Old | Photo Credit: Ian Douglas
Legacy + Lineage + Liberation is a dynamic evening of iconic works by UBW Founder/Chief Visioning Partner and 2021 MacArthur Fellow Jawole Willa Jo Zollar that ignites, inspires, and amplifies the voices of women+ of color. The works included in this program include Women’s Resistance, Girlfriends, Give Your Hands to Struggle, and I Don’t Know but I Been Told, If You Keep on Dancin’ You Never Grow Old.
The program also features a new work, Haint Blu (proscenium version), by UBW Co-Artistic Directors Chanon Judson and Samantha Speis in collaboration with The Company. Seeped in memory and magic, Haint Blu uses performance as a source of healing, taking us through movement into stillness and rest-remembering, reclaiming, releasing, and restoring. The proscenium version being performed on tour is inspired by the original site-specific, immersive experience created with communities across the United States.
Hair & Other Stories (2018), an urgent dialogue of the 21st Century, explores race, identity, and ideas of beauty through the lens of Black women’s hair. The work reflects on what constitutes freedom, liberation, and release in our everyday struggles to rise to our extraordinary selves in extraordinary times. Choreographed and directed by UBW Co-Artistic Directors Chanon Judson and Samantha Speis, Hair & Other Stories is inspired by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s HairStories (2001). Touring since 2018 in more than a dozen cities across the U.S., Hair & Other Stories is a thought-provoking work that reflects on racism in America.
2022 URBAN BUSH WOMEN TOUR DATES
January 21 - 22, 2022 | Legacy + Lineage + Liberation
Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH - Learn More & Buy Tickets HERE
February 18 - 19, 2022 | Hair & Other Stories
Duke Performances, Durham, NC - Learn More & Buy Tickets HERE
March 5, 2022 | Legacy + Lineage + Liberation
Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center, Alexandria, LA - Learn More & Buy Tickets HERE
April 1 - 2, 2022 | Hair & Other Stories
New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Newark, NJ - Learn More & Buy Tickets HERE
April 23, 2022 | Legacy + Lineage + Liberation
The O'Shaughnessy St. Catherine University, Saint Paul, MN - Learn More HERE
For more UBW touring information contact Director of Booking & Touring Michelle Coe.
HAINT BLU, SITE-SPECIFIC CREATIVE RESIDENCIES
The Haint Blu experience takes the audience through non-traditional performance spaces, geographical sites chosen in collaboration with community and presenting partners. Honoring and absorbing local history, each Haint Blu performance is a container of moments that are unique to each community.
Initial Haint Blu creative community partners include Live Arts Miami and Miami Dade College in partnership with Hampton House, New Orleans Coalition including Junebug Productions, Ashe Center and the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, Berkshires Coalition including MASS MoCA, Jacob's Pillow, and Williams College Dance Department, The Yard and the Community of Martha's Vineyard. Haint Blu has also received commissioning support from Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, NPN Creation Fund, LMCC's Residency Program, Arts & Culture on Governors Island, and Lumberyard's Technical Rehearsal Program.
Creative Developmental Residency Dates:
March 7 - 13 | Junebug Productions with the New Orleans Coalition
March 14 - 18 | Live Arts Miami and Miami Dade College with the Hampton House
March 21 - 25 | The Yard, Martha’s Vineyard
April 2 - 9 | MASS MoCA with the Berkshires Coalition
For more information about the work and how to bring Haint Blu to your community contact Producing Director Jonathan D. Secor.
ABOUT URBAN BUSH WOMEN
Urban Bush Women (UBW) burst onto the dance scene in 1984, with bold, demanding and exciting works that brought under-told stories to life through the art and vision of its award-winning founder, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. The Company weaves contemporary dance, music, and text with the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora under the artistic direction of Chanon Judson and Samantha Speis.
Off the concert stage, UBW has developed an extensive community engagement program that extends its values into people’s lives throughout the field and across the country. UBW’s BOLD (Builders, Organizers, and Leaders through Dance) is a unique workshop approach to facilitating a dialogue within an organization. UBW’s Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) is a 10-day intensive training program that connects dance professionals with community-based artists/activists to leverage the arts as a vehicle for civic engagement. UBW’s Choreographic Center Initiative (CCI) supports the development of women+ choreographers of color and other underheard voices.
###