|
NEA, CCI News, UBW Team Updates, & more! $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
URBAN BUSH WOMEN
TO RECEIVE GRANT FROM THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
|
|
Urban Bush Women is honored to have been selected for a Grants for Arts Projects award that will further our mission in bringing the untold and under-told stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance. We plan to use our perspective and power as Black women to create a more equitable balance of power for everyone, in the dance world and beyond. Urban Bush Women is among 1,073 organizations across America totaling nearly $25 million that were selected during this first round of fiscal year 2021 funding in the Grants for Arts Projects funding category. This significant funding supports our critical work to make sure the stories on our stages reflect the stories in our world. This support allows UBW to use dance to lift up OUR voices and create a space for collective healing. We can’t wait to use this opportunity to make investments that will not only strengthen UBW, but help us give back to you – our community. “The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support this project from Urban Bush Women,” said Arts Endowment Acting Chairman Ann Eilers. “Urban Bush Women is among the arts organizations across the country that have demonstrated creativity, excellence, and resilience during this very challenging year.”
|
CHOREOGRAPHIC CENTER INITIATIVE (CCI) NEWS
|
|
CCI Fellow Hope Boykin announced as a Mellon Foundation Bubble Residency grant awardee The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced it has distributed grants of more than $4 million to further its support for dance artists through “bubble residencies” in response to COVID-19. Hope’s work strives to bring young, aspiring students to a healthy understanding and efficient methods of technical and artistic movement. See the full list of recipients HERE! |
|
|
UBW Choreographic Center Initiative Fellowship Candidate Jenn Po’Chop Freeman is a recipient of FCA 2021 Grants to Artists Chicago-based burlesque artist Jenn Freeman, also known as Po’Chop, uses elements of dance, storytelling, and striptease to create performances and inspire students and collaborators across the country. The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) supports and encourages artists who continually redefine experimentality and who challenge us to think deeply about the world. |
|
|
|
|
LITANY by
Jenn Po’Chop Freeman A five-part dance film created in collaboration with Jordan Phelps of VAM Studio, LITANY uses brown paper and imagination to create new worlds full of rumbling anger and playful humor. LITANY is a voyage through a wooden dollhouse. A prayer whispered in grass-lined lots. A leap into the historical pages of Ebony Magazine. A collage. LITANY is an exorcism expelling antiquated notions of Blackness, queer identity, spirituality, grace, rage, and healing. Watch the full series HERE! |
|
|
Raja and Maria ON AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE commissioned by Bates Dance Festival UBW CCI Fellow Maria Bauman-Morales joined 16 artists in response to a series of prompts via interview, essay, and other prose as part of The Future Impossible: An Anthology curated by Raja Feather Kelly. Read Raja and Maria’s ON AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE interview HERE! |
|
|
|
|
CCI Fellow Ni’Ja Whitson will moderate at the 2021 Dance/NYC Symposium Transformation Track
The Transformation Track is a series of sessions aimed at inspiring change at the individual, organizational and field-wide level, incorporating the justice-related learnings into dance practice, coalition building, and policy change. Register for the 2021 Digital Symposium HERE! |
|
|
|
Ni’Ja Whitson announced as a recipient of the 2021 United States Artists Fellowship Ni’Ja Whitson is one of the sixty bold artists shaping today that have been recognized for both their bold artistic vision and their contributions to the field, and in being selected, are granted this award to further support their work. Learn more about Ni’Ja and their journey HERE!
|
|
Photo Credit: Shannel Resto | Co-Artistic Director Chanon Judson facilitating a Building Trust Through Process Workshop |
|
Builders, Organizers, and Leaders through Dance We’ve focused the Lens of our BOLD Organizing Practice to support communities navigating global turning points. Now, UBW’s practices of deep listening, navigating destabilization, reflection, and building community are of greater need. Let us support your organization or learning community! To book a BOLD engagement for your organization, please email BOLD Coordinator Kendra Ross at bold@urbanbushwomen.org. Feb 12 & 19 - UBW Virtual Archival Share - Success Academy
|
|
UBW welcomes Kendra Ross as the new
BOLD Coordinator Kendra J. Ross is a proud Detroit native working as a dancer, choreographer, facilitator, and community organizer in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. As a dancer in New York City, Kendra has worked with Urban Bush Women, Andrea E. Woods/Souloworks, Ase Dance Theater Collective, Monstah Black/ Motion Sickness, MBDance, Moving Spirits Dance Company, RAKIA!, Melanie Green, and as a guest artist with Oyu Oro. Kendra also completed a European tour dancing with Adira Amram and DJ Kid Koala in Vinyl Vaudeville 2.0 and performed with Gyptian at the MTV Iggy awards. Kendra is currently a company member of Movement of the People Dance Company. Read Kendra’s full bio HERE. |
|
|
UBW welcomes Elsie Neilson as the new Co-Artistic Directors’ Assistant Elsie Neilson is a Philadelphia based dancer, choreographer, and instructor. In Philly, she worked as the assistant to Dr. Gaynell Sherrod who served as the Interim Executive Director of PHILADANCO from 2019-2020, as well as an administrative intern for Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers. She became a company member with the Philadelphia based company, Opus 1 Contemporary, in 2019 and continues to perform with them. She received her BFA in Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) while graduating Summa Cum Laude. Read Elsie’s full bio HERE. |
|
|
|
|
UBW welcomes Rian Wood as the new Company Management Intern Rian Wood is a dance artist who is a native of Palm Beach County, Florida. She is currently located in Tallahassee, Florida in her final semester at Florida State University. In April, Rian will graduate with her BFA in dance as an active member of the University Honors College. She has a background in public relations through her coursework with the university and experience working with the public. Currently, Rian is participating in the Arts in NYC program at Florida State University, which has allowed her to intern remotely with Urban Bush Women this Spring. |
|
|
|
APAP’s Newest Board Members! During the annual member meeting on January 13, the APAP membership approved four new board members, including UBW family members Stephanie McKee-Anderson and Anna Glass! APAP's board of directors, working on behalf of members of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, envisions the future of the association and the development of long-range goals and strategic priorities.
|
|
Stephanie McKee-Anderson
Executive Artistic Director, Junebug Productions
UBW Choreographic Center Initiative Fellow |
|
|
|
|
Anna Glass
Executive Director, Dance Theatre of Harlem |
|
|
|
|
Black Dance Stories February 2021 Lineup includes UBW Family Members Vincent Thomas and Gaynell Sherrod! Black Dance Stories is a weekly storytelling series that focuses on Black creatives with the aim of upholding, highlighting, and celebrating voices within the dance community. Vincent Thomas joins Episode #27 on Thursday, February 11th, and Gaynell Sherrod joins Episode #28, Thursday, February 18th at 6:00 PM ET. Tune in to Black Dance Stories on YouTube HERE! |
|
|
The Laundromat Project announces 2021 Create Change Cohort and Radical Imagination Fellows UBW family member Rochelle Jamila Wilbun and choreographer Ogemdi Ude, along with four other artists have been selected as 2021 Create Change Artists-in-Residence! Rochelle and Ogemdi will create AfroPeach, a series of online and eventual in-person dance workshops for Black postpartum people in Brooklyn. The project will uniquely blend movement healing practices and birth work to provide holistic care for Black people after pregnancy and birth. See the full list of fellows HERE! |
|
|
|
YOUR SUPPORT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
|
|
Support the UBW Homecoming Fund For more than 35 years, UBW’s mission has been to create exceptional, provocative art, develop future leaders, and engage communities in our home base of Brooklyn, across the country, and around the world in art-making as a way of effecting social change. This important work is only possible due to our donors! As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, tickets and other earned revenue account for only 10 percent of UBW’s budget. The rest is covered by contributions from generous donors like you. It will take all of us. Every audience member. Every SLI alum. Everyone who has danced with UBW as a member of The Company or as a participant in a BOLD workshop. Every person who has been inspired by the work UBW creates year after year. Everyone who has a personal philosophy, career, or view of the world shaped by UBW. You can make a difference! |
|
Support UBW while shopping with AmazonSmile With every purchase you make with AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products to UBW! Support UBW with Amazon by visiting smile.amazon.com. |
|
|
SPECIAL THANKS TO…Our Funders
|
|
|
|
|
