Chanon Judson

Artistic Director

Chanon Judson’s been growing with the acclaimed Urban Bush Women since 2001, as performer and now Co-Artistic Director. She’s a director’s fellow with New Perspective Theatre Women’s Work Lab, Chicago Director’s Lab, and APAP's Leadership Fellowship Program. Choreographic credits include "Times Up!" (commissioned by Flea Theatre), “The Hang” (Taylor Mac, Here Arts), “Cannabis: A Viper Vaudeville” (Collaborator/Performer - Baba Israel/Grace Galu/ Talvin Wilks), “Orlando” (Barnard College), "Chronicle X" (Nia Witherspoon), "Prometheus Bound" (Tank Theatre), “The Invention of Tragedy” (Flea Theatre), and “Nurturing the Nurturer,” her original performance-ritual/gathering for mothers. Chanon has worked with Mickie Davidson, Talvin Wilks, Kwame Ross, Barak adé Soleil, Sita Frederick, Sandra Burton, and Allyne Gartrell. Performance credits include A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, God’s Trombone (Craig Harris), Cotton Club Parade, Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Concert, and the Tony award-winning musical Fela!

Chanon is an avid arts educator and has served as faculty with AileyCamp (Site Director), Alvin Ailey Arts in Education, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts. Chanon is the founder of Cumbe Center for Diasporic Arts’ Dance Drum and Imagination Camp for Children and co-founder of Family Arts (FAM). Alongside her husband, they offer spaces for families to learn, explore, and create. Chanon is a newly appointed Visiting Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo where she is investigating jazz embodiment, education, and organizing aesthetics as well as leading a charge to redesign the jazz curriculum to better reflect the rich contributions of the African Diaspora.

MAME DIARRA Speis

Artistic Director

Mame Diarra Speis (she/her), is a mother and movement improviser intrigued with play, risk, rigor, and experimentation. She is currently a performer and the Co-Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed Urban Bush Women. Speis has had the pleasure of working with Gesel Mason, The Dance Exchange, jumatatu poe, Deborah Hay (as part of the Sweet Day curated by Ralph Lemon at the MoMA), Baba Israel, Marjani Forte-Saunders, and Liz Lerman. She recently performed as a guest artist with MBDance in the Motherboard Suite with artist Saul Williams, under the direction of Bill T. Jones. Speis was the recipient of the Alvin Ailey New Directions Choreography Lab and was awarded a Bessie for Outstanding Performer in 2017. Her work has been featured at the Kennedy Center, Long Island University, Joyce SoHo, Hollins University, BAAD, Danspace Project, BAM, Dixon Place, BRIC, Dance Place, and The Kelly Strayhorn Theater. Speis has developed a movement and teaching practice that explores pelvic mobility as the root of powerful locomotion and as a point of connection to the stories, experiences and lineages that reside in each of us. She has been a guest artist and teacher throughout the U.S., South America, Senegal, and Europe. Speis has also taught at Princeton University as a Lecturer in Dance. She has been fortunate to continue building a strong relationship with her alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), in various capacities and was the commencement speaker for the VCUarts graduating class of 2020-2021. Her recent projects include Walking with Trane co-choreographed with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and her collaboration with Chanon Judson-Johnson on Hair and Other Stories and Haint Blu. 

Courtney J. Cook

Associate Artistic Director/
company member

Courtney J. Cook is a Virginia Native now residing in Brooklyn, NY. She is a graduate of the Virginia Governor’s School of the Arts and holds a B.F.A in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is now Associate Artistic Director, BOLD facilitator, and performing company member with Urban Bush Women, was a company member with MBDance (Maria Bauman), and a featured artist with Marguerite Hemmings (we free). She is honored to be a recipient of the 2018 “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Performance for her work with all three of these organizations. As a creator, she has had the privilege of performing her solo work, “PoolPITT”, as a featured artist in ModArts Dance Collective’s Collective Thread ‘17, the Estrogenious Festival ‘17, curated by Maura Donohue, and BDAC’s Creative Emancipation Collaboration, curated by Ebony Noelle Golden. She also has been able to create in collaboration with interdisciplinary artists Tendayi Kuumba and Greg Purnell (FLUXX), presented by BRICLab and Harlem Stage (2019). In 2022, Cook was involved as performer/choreographic collaborator and vocalist in Cannabis! A Viper Vaudville, created by Baba Isreal and Grace Galu Kalambay (Soul Inscribed). She is driven to continue developing and discovering her identity as a mother, movement artist, visual artist, and vocalist.

mikaila ware

company member

Mikaila Ware, at the age of five, began taking dance classes at a recreational center on the military base of Fort Stewart, Georgia. Upon her parents’ military retirement, Mikaila’s family settled in Ellenwood, Georgia where she furthered her training at Price Performing Arts Center and Dekalb School of the Arts. Mikaila then went on to expand her range at intensives such as Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and obtained her B.F.A in Dance at Florida State University. As a NY-based movement artist, Mikaila has worked in the mediums of dance and film, through collaboration, with choreographers and directors such as Kayla Farrish(Decent Structures Arts), André Zachery(Renegade Performance Group), Johnnie Cruise Mercer(TheREDprojectNYC), and Max Rothman (Monticello Park Productions) with Dubois A’keen. Mikaila’s performances have been featured in articles such as the NY Times, Dance Magazine, Dance Enthusiast, and Danspace Project. Additionally, Mikaila worked both administratively and creatively through the completion of the Accessibility Partnerships and Programs Fellowship at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Furthermore, Mikaila is an alumna of the Diversity in Arts Leadership program with the Arts and Business Council of New York. She is currently a company member with Urban Bush Women and collaborator with Davalois Fearon Dance.

ROOBI GASKINS

company member

Roobi Gaskins is a NYC based artist, who specializes in dance, choreography, and garment construction.  Although she has always had a passion for dance, she owes her movement genesis, ability, and training to 14 years of competitive figure skating, where she competed internationally as a member of the Puerto Rican national team.  Due to injury, she decided to redirect her career path, and began her formal dance training at Bard College where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Dance with a focus in Africana Studies.  She was an apprentice with Urban Bush Women in 2019-20, and has also performed works with various artists and companies including but not limited to Abby Z and the New Utility (Jacob’s Pillow), Brownbody, Marguerite Hemmings (Baryshnikov Arts Center), 7NMS (New York Live Arts), and Trisha Brown (92nd Street Y).

KENTORIA EARLE

company member

Kentoria Earle was raised in Winter Haven, Florida and is the proud daughter of Kent Earle and Victoria Wilson. She recently graduated from The Florida State University where she obtained her Master of Arts in Dance/ Studio Related Studies. Since graduating she has had the opportunity to work with choreographers/ artists such as Renegade Performance Group, Abigail Levine, and Urban Bush Women as an apprentice. Kentoria has spent her first few years post grad entering the field as a Brooklyn based performing artist and collaborator. She is working to build an artistic process that looks at solo/improvisational practices as a way to tap into ancestry and lineage based movement exploration. Kentoria believes these practices support and open up spaces where artists can be fully present for what often results in holistic & sustainable approaches to our healing, individually and collectively.

Symara Sarai

company member

Symara Sarai, a Portland, Oregon native currently residing in Brooklyn, has immersed herself in interdisciplinary and choreographic studies globally. Her work varies due to the different influences she has embraced throughout her life. A 2023 Bessie Winner for Breakout Choreographer, Symara is also a recipient of the Dai Ailian Foundation Scholarship based in Trinidad and Tobago. The scholarship led her to Beijing, China where she spent two years gaining an associate degree in modern choreography at the renowned Beijing Dance Academy. Symara is a graduate of SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance Program. She was a resident artist for Bearnstow, Gibney 6.2 Work Up, Gallim’s 2022 Moving Artist’s Residency, BAX’s Fall 2022 Space Grant Program, and Center for Performance Research’s 2022 AIR Program. She is a 2023 Women in Motion Commissioned Artist. Their work as a performer and maker has been reviewed and featured in the NY Times, Dance Enthusiast, Fjord, as well as promoted through Forbes. She has had multiple film works commissioned by Berlin-based choreographer Christoph Winkler. They have presented work at the WIP Showing at Bates Dance Festival, The Clarice at UMD, The LGBT Center, Judson Church, BAAD, WiM Salon, Chez Bushwhick, The Beijing Dance Academy Theatre, and other venues throughout the United States, China, and Germany. She is currently an Urban Bush Women company member. She has also notably worked with Jawole-Willa Jo Zollar, Joanna Kotze, Jasmine Hearn, Raymond Pinto, Ogemdi Ude, Ley Gambucci, Pioneers Go East Collective, Rena Butler, Kevin Wynn, Nattie Trogdon+Hollis Bartlett, Alexandra Beller, and Slowdanger, among others.

KEOLA JONES

company member

Keola Jones, born and raised in Richmond, VA, is a movement artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She began her dance journey at Pine Camp Cultural Arts Center and continued training at Henrico High School’s Center for the Arts. She is a ‘22 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Dance and Choreography. During her time at Virginia Commonwealth University, she was awarded Outstanding Performer, Emerging Leader, and the African American Studies’ Black History in the Making Award. Keola has had the opportunity to work and collaborate with many artists including Christopher K. Morgan & Artists, Johnnie Cruise Mercer (TheREDprojectNYC), Dr. E. Gaynell Sherrod, Scott Putman, and Sinclair Emoghene, among many others. Keola has served as faculty at the College of William & Mary as an adjunct professor and is working with the Leah Glenn Dance Theatre based in Williamsburg, VA. She has worked with the Dance Union and was an inaugural fellow with TheREDprojectNYC (Johnnie Cruise Mercer) from 2018-20. Keola is currently a BOLD facilitator in training and recently concluded her apprenticeship with Urban Bush Women to join as a performing company member.