× Upcoming Events A Message from the Lobby Make a Donation About The Purchase PAC Past Events
Home A Message from the Lobby Make a Donation About The Purchase PAC
Image for Urban Bush Women
Tonight's Performance

Urban Bush Women
Legacy + Lineage + Liberation

Saturday, February 24, 2024

 

Original Choreography by
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Founder

Directed by
Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis, Co-Artistic Directors

Associate Artistic Director
Courtney J. Cook

The Company
Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Symara Sarai, Keola Jones, Kashia Kancey (Apprentice), Mikaila Ware

Musician/Performer
Grace Galu Kalambay

Percussionist
Lucianna Padmore

Lighting Supervisor
John D. Alexander

Production Manager
Luisa Buitrago

 

Program Repertory

 

I Don’t Know, but I Been Told, If You Keep on Dancin’ You Never Grow Old (1989)
The opening solo of I Don’t Know… is an excerpt from Visible
by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and nora chipaumire with Marguerite Hemmings
Music: Percussion performed by Lucianna Padmore
Lighting: John D. Alexander

 

Give Your Hands to Struggle (1998)
Music: Give Your Hands to Struggle, words and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon
© 1986 Songtalk Publishing Co., Washington DC. Used by Permission.
Lighting: Russell Sandifer

Give Your Hands to Struggle was originally choreographed and developed at the Florida State University Dance Department for Cathy Horta. It is an excerpt from the evening-length work, Hands Singing Song (1998), commissioned by the American Dance Festival through the Doris Duke Awards for New Work, with additional support from the Philip Morris New Works Fund.

 

Women’s Resistance (2008)

Choreography: Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Germaine Acogny (Compagnie Jant-Bi)
Excerpted from the evening-length work les écailles de la mémoire (Scales of Memory)
Music: Fabrice Bouillon-LaForest with Frederic Bobin
Lighting: Russell Sandifer
Costumes: Naoko Nagata

Women’s Resistance is an excerpt of the evening-length work, les écailles de la mémoire (Scales of Memory, (2008), co-commissioned by DANCECleveland with funding from the 2006 Joyce Award and Christopher Newport University’s Ferguson Center for the Arts .It was developed via creative residencies hosted by the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and L’Ecole des Sables. Additional funding: National Dance Project, The MAP Fund, and Florida State University Cornerstone Arts and Humanities Program Enhancement Grant.

 

--  Intermission --

 

Haint Blu: Episode 1
Listenin’ and Dreamin’: Do You Hear Me Now?
(2023)

Choreography by Chanon Judson & Mame Diarra  Speis, Co-Artistic Directors, in collaboration with the company: Courtney J. Cook, Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Symara Sarai, Bianca Leticia Medina, and Mikaila Ware
Writer: Nina Angela Mercer
Producer: Jonathan D. Secor
Dramaturg: Talvin Wilks
Projections Designer: Nicholas Hussong
Music: Percussion performed by Lucianna Padmore
Guitar and vocals performed by Grace Galu Kalambay
Lighting: John D. Alexander
Costume Coordinator: Lori Gassie

Episode 1 is excerpted from Haint Blu, an evening-length site-responsive work built in and with community over time. Prior partners and presenters include Live Arts Miami and Miami Dade College in partnership with Historic Hampton House; New Orleans: Junebug Productions in partnership with André Callioux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice; Berkshires Coalition: Williams College Dance Department, MASS MoCA, and Jacob's Pillow; The Yard, working with the Wampanoag people and the Oak Bluff community.

Additional commissioning partners: Wesleyan University Center for the Arts; Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.

Residency and development support: NPN Creation Fund, LMCC's Residency Program, Arts & Culture on Governors Island, Lumberyard's Technical Rehearsal Program.

About Urban Bush Women

Urban Bush Women (UBW) burst onto the dance scene in 1984, with bold, innovative, demanding and exciting works that brought under-told stories to life under the artistic direction Co-Artistic Directors of the UBW Company, Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis. Originally founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the company continues to weave contemporary dance, music, and text with the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora.

UBW performs regularly in New York City and tours nationally and internationally. The Company has been commissioned by presenters nationwide, and includes among its honors a New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”); the Capezio Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance; a Black Theater Alliance Award; two Doris Duke Awards for New Work from the American Dance Festival; and named one of America’s Cultural Treasures by the Ford Foundation. Zollar is a recipient of the 2021 DanceTeacher Award of Distinction, the 2021 Martha Hill Dance Fund Lifetime Achievement Award, and named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. Speis is the recipient of the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer with the ensemble skeleton architecture. Judson received the APAP Leadership Fellowship and the Director’s Lab Chicago Fellowship in 2018.

Off the concert stage, UBW has developed an extensive community engagement program called BOLD (Builders, Organizers, and Leaders through Dance). UBW’s largest community engagement project is its Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), established in 1997. This 10-day intensive training program serves as the foundation for all of the company’s community engagement activities. Ultimately the SLI program connects dance professionals and community-based artists/activists in a learning experience to leverage the arts as a vehicle for civic engagement. UBW launched the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative Producing Program (CCI 2.0) in March 2022. The CCI 2.0 fellowships support the development of women choreographers and producers of color and other underheard voices.

URBAN BUSH WOMEN STAFF:
Chanon Judson & Mame Diarra Speis, Co-Artistic Directors/BOLD Directors
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Founder
Tahnia Belle, Acting Executive Director
Jonathan D. Secor, Producer & Creative Executive Producer, 40th Anniversary
Michelle Coe, Director of Production, Booking & Touring
Cheri Stokes, Associate Producer of Special Projects
Pia Monique Murray, Associate Producer, 40th Anniversary
Makeda Smith, Marketing Manager
Angelina Lopez, Marketing Assistant
Tracy Cochran, Human Resources/Operations Manager
Ameeya Singh, Operations Assistant
Brooke Rucker, Development Associate
Veronica Jiao, Founder's Assistant
Elsie Neilson, Executive Assistant to the Co-Artistic Directors
Zoe Walders, Executive Assistant to the Acting Executive Director
Henry Liles, Finance Manager
Camille Lawrence, Archivist
Whitney Christopher, Archives Assistant
Luisa Fernanda Buitrago, Production Manager
John D. Alexander, Lighting Supervisor
Pinar Goodstone, BOLD Logistics Coordinator
Jaimé Yawa Dzandu, BOLD Artistic Coordinator
Dani Criss, BOLD Facilitator
Advance NYC, Development Consultants
Paloma McGregor, SLI Associate Director
Lai-Lin Robinson, CCI Producing Program & "When Black Women Speak" Producer
Jolie Saltiel, Tour & Company Manager
Shaena Smith, NYC Production Assistant
Bennalldra Williams, Movement Coach

Urban Bush Women Company Apprentices are supported by The New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowships: Kashia Kancey, J'nae Simmons, and Synead Cidney Nichols

For booking: Michelle Coe, Director of Production, Booking & Touring: mcoe@urbanbushwomen.org

Urban Bush Women 40th Anniversary leadership funding provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Additional funding is provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

MAJOR FUNDING FOR URBAN BUSH WOMEN IS PROVIDED BY:

Anonymous; Acton Family Giving; Bloomberg Philanthropies; David Rockefeller Fund; Doris Duke Foundation; Ford Foundation; Howard Gilman Foundation; The Institute of Museum and Library Services; International Association of Blacks in Dance; Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Mellon Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts (NEA); National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund; New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project; The New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship Program; New York State Council on the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; The Shubert Foundation; Solidaire Black Liberation Pooled Fund; William Talbott Hillman Foundation; Barnard College Center for Research on Women, Barnard College Office of Community Engagement & Inclusion; The O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation; The Harkness Foundation for Dance


Connect with Urban Bush Women

www.urbanbushwomen.org

Facebook: @urbanbushwomen
Twitter: @ubwdance
Instagram: @ubwdance

The Company

Chanon Judson (Co-Artistic Director) has 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 (Co-Artistic Director) 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 “Some Sweet Day” curated by Ralph Lemon at The Museum of Modern Art), 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, The Joyce SoHo, Hollins University, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Danspace Project, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 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 United States, 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. 

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Founder) After earning her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Zollar received her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1984 Zollar founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Zollar developed a unique approach to enable artists to strengthen effective involvement in cultural organizing and civic engagement, which evolved into UBW’s acclaimed Summer Leadership Institute. She serves as director of the Institute, founding artistic director, and visioning partner of UBW, and currently holds the position of the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.

Awards: 2008 United States Artists Wynn fellowship, 2009 fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, 2013 Arthur L. Johnson Memorial award by Sphinx Organization, 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, 2014 Meadows Prize from Southern Methodist University, 2015 Dance Magazine Award, 2016 Dance/USA Honor Award, 2016 Black Theater Alliance Award, 2017 Bessie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance, 2018 American Conference on Diversity Performing Arts Humanitarian Award, 2021 fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 2021 Dance Teacher Award of Distinction, and the 2021 Martha Hill Dance Fund Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2022 Dorothy and Lilian Gish Prize.

Courtney J. Cook (Associate Artistic Director) 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).

Kentoria Earle (Performer) 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 and 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 and 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 and sustainable approaches to our healing, individually and collectively.

Roobi Gaskins (Performer) is a New York City-based artist, who specializes in dance, choreography, and garment construction. Although she has always had a passion for dance, she owes her movement genesis and training to 14 years of competitive figure skating, where she competed internationally as a member of the Puerto Rican national team. She began her formal dance training at Bard College where she received a BA in Dance. She was an apprentice with Urban Bush Women in their 2019-2020 season, and has also performed works with various artists including Abby Z and the New Utility, Brownbody, 7NMS, and Trisha Brown.

Symara Sarai (Performer) 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 the Purchase College 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.

Keola Jones (Performer) born in Glen Allen, VA, land of the Powhatan people, is a 2022 graduate of the Dance & Choreography BFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Keola is a movement artist, performer, researcher, filmmaker, choreographer and educator. Keola’s movement practice is deeply influenced by research of how Black bodies hold and release emotions and trauma.  She was recently an Inaugural Fellow with Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s company TheRedprojectNYC in 2022 and now works for the company. She also works as an adjunct professor of dance at The College of William & Mary and is a company member of the Leah Glenn Dance Theatre.

Kashia Kancey (Performer/Apprentice) is a Miami-born performer and choreographer, who earned her BFA in Dance from New World School of the Arts. Some of her choreographic history includes having work presented in The Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center through commissions by Peter London Global Dance Company, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dixon Place and CreateART Performance. Kashia has performed in spaces like Perez Art Museum Miami, South-Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, Dance Place DC, the American Dance Festival, The Yard, and New York Live Arts. She has danced with Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Adele Myers and Dancers, and Abby Z and the New Utility. Kashia is most recently an apprentice with Urban Bush Women and is a company member with David Dorfman Dance. She is also a 2023 Gallim Moving Artist in Residence. Kashia is based in Brooklyn, NY, and continues to pursue her career as a performer and choreographer.

Mikaila Ware (Performer) (B.F.A. Florida State University) began her dance training at Fort Stewart, Georgia at the age of five. Now a New York-based movement artist, Ware has worked in the mediums of dance and film with choreographers such as Davalois Fearon, Kayla Farrish, André Zachery, and Johnnie Cruise Mercer. Ware’s performances have been featured in articles such as The New York Times, Dance Magazine, and Dance Enthusiast. Additionally, Ware completed the Accessibility Partnerships and Programs Fellowship at The Lincoln Center and is an alumna of the Diversity in Arts Leadership program with the Arts and Business Council of New York.

Grace Galu Kalambay (Musician/Performer) is a vocalist, actor, guitarist, and composer. She combines the sounds of her Irish and Congolese heritage with her LES upbringing in a soulful and gritty twist. Kalambay was recently featured in Buskerball 2022, and recorded Firelight with Fearless Music. Her composition, “Ordinary Sentiment” was featured in the Ed Burns film, Purple Violets' which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Grace devised The Mendelssohn Electric with Trusty Sidekick, and was cast as the lead in their production, The Gospel Electric, commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory. She is a core member of the band Soul Inscribed, and has for the third time been selected as a cultural ambassador for the American Music Abroad program. Kalambay is also a recipient of the NEFA NTP grant. Soul Inscribed has recently been signed to the music label, Tokyo Dawn and just released their EP, Tune UP. Kalambay is an artist in residence at HERE Arts Center and the composer for Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville. Kalambay voiced Wisdom in Nia Witherspoon’s production, The Dark Girl Chronicles (2021 at The Shed). She is currently touring Haint Blu with Urban Bush Women.

Lucianna Padmore (Musician/Performer) A Bronx native, New York-based drummer Lucianna Padmore has been praised by Modern Drummer magazine for “Deep grooves and serious fusion chops.” Lucianna’s versatile drumming is featured with artists in the Jazz, Hip-Hop, Funk, Rock, Pop, and Fusion genres. An alumnus of LaGuardia High School for Music and the Performing Arts and the New School University, she has received awards from Jazz at Lincoln Center and BMI for her jazz improvisation. Lucianna’s live and studio projects include residencies in and around the Tri-state area with the John Smith Trio, a member of HotJazz Jumpers, drummer for Singer-Songwriter Alyson Murray, Bertha Hope’s Nu Trio, and Quintet The Fiery String Sista. She also leads her own Quartet and releases music as an independent artist, with the current release of the single, Life Long Love Affair featuring Saxophonist Gerald Albright. As an educator, she is active in drum instruction and jazz outreach in N.Y. Tri-state area. Lucianna is featured in the book Sticks and Skins, Endorses Soul Tone cymbals, and plays Scorpion signature 3a Drum sticks.

Luisa Buitrago (Production Manager) is an artist from Colombia, exploring the fields of poetry, storytelling, mixed media, multimedia, and performing arts as a producer and performer. Dedicated to enjoying her life inside diverse communities in South Florida, Luisa has collaborated on projects that transform traditional and alternative stages into one-of-a-kind encounters. Nurturing artists’ needs and building creative spaces for their productions has guided Luisa to joint discoveries and futures, both joyful and imaginative. Her recent projects include “Anna In the Tropics,” a Pulitzer winner play by Nilo Cruz (2023, Miami New Drama), “Papá Cuatro,” a documentary theater Play by Juan Souki (2022, Miami New Drama), “Corporeal Decorum,” contemporary dance and multimedia by Liony Garcia (2022, The Ringling Museum), “National Water Dance,” a community-oriented multi-art celebration by National Water Dance Projects (2022, SMDCAC), “Where Home Is,” a navigational game-inspired sonic journey by Juraj Kojš (2021, Live Arts Miami and Knight Foundation), and “Devotion,” a contemporary dance performance by Rosie Herrera Dance Theater Company (2022 and 2023, ADF and tour). Luisa is honored and excited about her current full time Production Manager position with UBW, where new adventures await.

John D. Alexander (Lighting Supervisor) OFF-BROADWAY: Migration, Reflections on Jacob Lawrence (National Tour). DC AREA: Daphne's Dive, TRANS AM, Detroit 67, Children of Eden, This Bitter Earth, Topdog/Under Dog (Helen Hayes Nomination), Fabulation or the Re-Education of Undine, Marie and Rosetta, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Airness, Darius and Twig, Black Nativity, Disgraced, HERstory, Black Berry Winter, The Gospel at Colonus, Happiness (and Other Reasons to Die), King Lear, Broke-ology, American Moor, Anne and Emmett (National and European Tour). REGIONAL: SWEAT, Kill Move Paradise, Once, Paradise Blue, Skeleton Crew, Royale and The Snowy Day and Other Stories. TV: No Child (PBS). UPCOMING REGIONAL: Chad Deity, Mary’s Seacole and Sheepdog. UPCOMING WORLD PREMIERE: Crying on Television, Quamino’s Map, House of the Negro Insane, B.R.O.K.E.N. Code B.I.R.D. Switching and Hoola Hoopin Queen. www.johndalexanderlightingdesign.com 

Nicholas Hussong (Projections Designer, Haint Blu) is a creator of video, projections and film for live (and now digital) performance and events. Creative Producer at Dwight Street Book Club. Broadway: Skeleton Crew. Other regional credits include: Until the Flood (13 regional and international locations); Haint Blu, Hair & Other Stories (Urban Bush Women); These Paper Bullets, Drama Desk Nomination (Yale Rep, Atlantic Theater Company, Geffen Playhouse); Woman's Party (Clubbed Thumb); Grounded (Alley); Arden Theater, Playmakers Rep, Berkshires Theatre Group, Marc Jacobs, Nashville Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Tony Awards (CBS). He also designed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, China, Canada, and Vienna. Co-Creator of FEAST, an immersive dining experience with Listen&Breathe (Nantucket, Ireland, and please, hopefully, someday, the United States). Adjunct Lecturer New School of Drama and USC. Yale MFA. UAW and USA829 www.nickhussong.com

Nina Angela Mercer (Writer, Haint Blu) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker. Her plays include Gutta Beautiful; ITAGUA MEJI: A ROAD AND A PRAYER; Gypsy & The Bully Door; and A Compulsion for Breathing. Her writing is published in Black Renaissance Noire; Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance; BreakBeat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Press); Are You Entertained? Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century (Duke University Press); Performance Research Journal; Represent! New Plays for Multicultural Young People (Bloomsbury Press); and A Gathering of the Tribes Online Magazine. Find more at www.ninaangelamercer.com.

Image for Urban Bush Women
Tonight's Performance

Urban Bush Women
Legacy + Lineage + Liberation

Saturday, February 24, 2024

 

Original Choreography by
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Founder

Directed by
Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis, Co-Artistic Directors

Associate Artistic Director
Courtney J. Cook

The Company
Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Symara Sarai, Keola Jones, Kashia Kancey (Apprentice), Mikaila Ware

Musician/Performer
Grace Galu Kalambay

Percussionist
Lucianna Padmore

Lighting Supervisor
John D. Alexander

Production Manager
Luisa Buitrago

 

Program Repertory

 

I Don’t Know, but I Been Told, If You Keep on Dancin’ You Never Grow Old (1989)
The opening solo of I Don’t Know… is an excerpt from Visible
by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and nora chipaumire with Marguerite Hemmings
Music: Percussion performed by Lucianna Padmore
Lighting: John D. Alexander

 

Give Your Hands to Struggle (1998)
Music: Give Your Hands to Struggle, words and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon
© 1986 Songtalk Publishing Co., Washington DC. Used by Permission.
Lighting: Russell Sandifer

Give Your Hands to Struggle was originally choreographed and developed at the Florida State University Dance Department for Cathy Horta. It is an excerpt from the evening-length work, Hands Singing Song (1998), commissioned by the American Dance Festival through the Doris Duke Awards for New Work, with additional support from the Philip Morris New Works Fund.

 

Women’s Resistance (2008)

Choreography: Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Germaine Acogny (Compagnie Jant-Bi)
Excerpted from the evening-length work les écailles de la mémoire (Scales of Memory)
Music: Fabrice Bouillon-LaForest with Frederic Bobin
Lighting: Russell Sandifer
Costumes: Naoko Nagata

Women’s Resistance is an excerpt of the evening-length work, les écailles de la mémoire (Scales of Memory, (2008), co-commissioned by DANCECleveland with funding from the 2006 Joyce Award and Christopher Newport University’s Ferguson Center for the Arts .It was developed via creative residencies hosted by the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and L’Ecole des Sables. Additional funding: National Dance Project, The MAP Fund, and Florida State University Cornerstone Arts and Humanities Program Enhancement Grant.

 

--  Intermission --

 

Haint Blu: Episode 1
Listenin’ and Dreamin’: Do You Hear Me Now?
(2023)

Choreography by Chanon Judson & Mame Diarra  Speis, Co-Artistic Directors, in collaboration with the company: Courtney J. Cook, Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Symara Sarai, Bianca Leticia Medina, and Mikaila Ware
Writer: Nina Angela Mercer
Producer: Jonathan D. Secor
Dramaturg: Talvin Wilks
Projections Designer: Nicholas Hussong
Music: Percussion performed by Lucianna Padmore
Guitar and vocals performed by Grace Galu Kalambay
Lighting: John D. Alexander
Costume Coordinator: Lori Gassie

Episode 1 is excerpted from Haint Blu, an evening-length site-responsive work built in and with community over time. Prior partners and presenters include Live Arts Miami and Miami Dade College in partnership with Historic Hampton House; New Orleans: Junebug Productions in partnership with André Callioux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice; Berkshires Coalition: Williams College Dance Department, MASS MoCA, and Jacob's Pillow; The Yard, working with the Wampanoag people and the Oak Bluff community.

Additional commissioning partners: Wesleyan University Center for the Arts; Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.

Residency and development support: NPN Creation Fund, LMCC's Residency Program, Arts & Culture on Governors Island, Lumberyard's Technical Rehearsal Program.

About Urban Bush Women

Urban Bush Women (UBW) burst onto the dance scene in 1984, with bold, innovative, demanding and exciting works that brought under-told stories to life under the artistic direction Co-Artistic Directors of the UBW Company, Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis. Originally founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the company continues to weave contemporary dance, music, and text with the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora.

UBW performs regularly in New York City and tours nationally and internationally. The Company has been commissioned by presenters nationwide, and includes among its honors a New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”); the Capezio Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance; a Black Theater Alliance Award; two Doris Duke Awards for New Work from the American Dance Festival; and named one of America’s Cultural Treasures by the Ford Foundation. Zollar is a recipient of the 2021 DanceTeacher Award of Distinction, the 2021 Martha Hill Dance Fund Lifetime Achievement Award, and named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. Speis is the recipient of the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer with the ensemble skeleton architecture. Judson received the APAP Leadership Fellowship and the Director’s Lab Chicago Fellowship in 2018.

Off the concert stage, UBW has developed an extensive community engagement program called BOLD (Builders, Organizers, and Leaders through Dance). UBW’s largest community engagement project is its Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), established in 1997. This 10-day intensive training program serves as the foundation for all of the company’s community engagement activities. Ultimately the SLI program connects dance professionals and community-based artists/activists in a learning experience to leverage the arts as a vehicle for civic engagement. UBW launched the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative Producing Program (CCI 2.0) in March 2022. The CCI 2.0 fellowships support the development of women choreographers and producers of color and other underheard voices.

URBAN BUSH WOMEN STAFF:
Chanon Judson & Mame Diarra Speis, Co-Artistic Directors/BOLD Directors
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Founder
Tahnia Belle, Acting Executive Director
Jonathan D. Secor, Producer & Creative Executive Producer, 40th Anniversary
Michelle Coe, Director of Production, Booking & Touring
Cheri Stokes, Associate Producer of Special Projects
Pia Monique Murray, Associate Producer, 40th Anniversary
Makeda Smith, Marketing Manager
Angelina Lopez, Marketing Assistant
Tracy Cochran, Human Resources/Operations Manager
Ameeya Singh, Operations Assistant
Brooke Rucker, Development Associate
Veronica Jiao, Founder's Assistant
Elsie Neilson, Executive Assistant to the Co-Artistic Directors
Zoe Walders, Executive Assistant to the Acting Executive Director
Henry Liles, Finance Manager
Camille Lawrence, Archivist
Whitney Christopher, Archives Assistant
Luisa Fernanda Buitrago, Production Manager
John D. Alexander, Lighting Supervisor
Pinar Goodstone, BOLD Logistics Coordinator
Jaimé Yawa Dzandu, BOLD Artistic Coordinator
Dani Criss, BOLD Facilitator
Advance NYC, Development Consultants
Paloma McGregor, SLI Associate Director
Lai-Lin Robinson, CCI Producing Program & "When Black Women Speak" Producer
Jolie Saltiel, Tour & Company Manager
Shaena Smith, NYC Production Assistant
Bennalldra Williams, Movement Coach

Urban Bush Women Company Apprentices are supported by The New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowships: Kashia Kancey, J'nae Simmons, and Synead Cidney Nichols

For booking: Michelle Coe, Director of Production, Booking & Touring: mcoe@urbanbushwomen.org

Urban Bush Women 40th Anniversary leadership funding provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Additional funding is provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

MAJOR FUNDING FOR URBAN BUSH WOMEN IS PROVIDED BY:

Anonymous; Acton Family Giving; Bloomberg Philanthropies; David Rockefeller Fund; Doris Duke Foundation; Ford Foundation; Howard Gilman Foundation; The Institute of Museum and Library Services; International Association of Blacks in Dance; Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Mellon Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts (NEA); National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund; New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project; The New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship Program; New York State Council on the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; The Shubert Foundation; Solidaire Black Liberation Pooled Fund; William Talbott Hillman Foundation; Barnard College Center for Research on Women, Barnard College Office of Community Engagement & Inclusion; The O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation; The Harkness Foundation for Dance


Connect with Urban Bush Women

www.urbanbushwomen.org

Facebook: @urbanbushwomen
Twitter: @ubwdance
Instagram: @ubwdance

The Company

Chanon Judson (Co-Artistic Director) has 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 (Co-Artistic Director) 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 “Some Sweet Day” curated by Ralph Lemon at The Museum of Modern Art), 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, The Joyce SoHo, Hollins University, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Danspace Project, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 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 United States, 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. 

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Founder) After earning her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Zollar received her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1984 Zollar founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Zollar developed a unique approach to enable artists to strengthen effective involvement in cultural organizing and civic engagement, which evolved into UBW’s acclaimed Summer Leadership Institute. She serves as director of the Institute, founding artistic director, and visioning partner of UBW, and currently holds the position of the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.

Awards: 2008 United States Artists Wynn fellowship, 2009 fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, 2013 Arthur L. Johnson Memorial award by Sphinx Organization, 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, 2014 Meadows Prize from Southern Methodist University, 2015 Dance Magazine Award, 2016 Dance/USA Honor Award, 2016 Black Theater Alliance Award, 2017 Bessie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance, 2018 American Conference on Diversity Performing Arts Humanitarian Award, 2021 fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 2021 Dance Teacher Award of Distinction, and the 2021 Martha Hill Dance Fund Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2022 Dorothy and Lilian Gish Prize.

Courtney J. Cook (Associate Artistic Director) 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).

Kentoria Earle (Performer) 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 and 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 and 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 and sustainable approaches to our healing, individually and collectively.

Roobi Gaskins (Performer) is a New York City-based artist, who specializes in dance, choreography, and garment construction. Although she has always had a passion for dance, she owes her movement genesis and training to 14 years of competitive figure skating, where she competed internationally as a member of the Puerto Rican national team. She began her formal dance training at Bard College where she received a BA in Dance. She was an apprentice with Urban Bush Women in their 2019-2020 season, and has also performed works with various artists including Abby Z and the New Utility, Brownbody, 7NMS, and Trisha Brown.

Symara Sarai (Performer) 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 the Purchase College 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.

Keola Jones (Performer) born in Glen Allen, VA, land of the Powhatan people, is a 2022 graduate of the Dance & Choreography BFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Keola is a movement artist, performer, researcher, filmmaker, choreographer and educator. Keola’s movement practice is deeply influenced by research of how Black bodies hold and release emotions and trauma.  She was recently an Inaugural Fellow with Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s company TheRedprojectNYC in 2022 and now works for the company. She also works as an adjunct professor of dance at The College of William & Mary and is a company member of the Leah Glenn Dance Theatre.

Kashia Kancey (Performer/Apprentice) is a Miami-born performer and choreographer, who earned her BFA in Dance from New World School of the Arts. Some of her choreographic history includes having work presented in The Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center through commissions by Peter London Global Dance Company, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dixon Place and CreateART Performance. Kashia has performed in spaces like Perez Art Museum Miami, South-Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, Dance Place DC, the American Dance Festival, The Yard, and New York Live Arts. She has danced with Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Adele Myers and Dancers, and Abby Z and the New Utility. Kashia is most recently an apprentice with Urban Bush Women and is a company member with David Dorfman Dance. She is also a 2023 Gallim Moving Artist in Residence. Kashia is based in Brooklyn, NY, and continues to pursue her career as a performer and choreographer.

Mikaila Ware (Performer) (B.F.A. Florida State University) began her dance training at Fort Stewart, Georgia at the age of five. Now a New York-based movement artist, Ware has worked in the mediums of dance and film with choreographers such as Davalois Fearon, Kayla Farrish, André Zachery, and Johnnie Cruise Mercer. Ware’s performances have been featured in articles such as The New York Times, Dance Magazine, and Dance Enthusiast. Additionally, Ware completed the Accessibility Partnerships and Programs Fellowship at The Lincoln Center and is an alumna of the Diversity in Arts Leadership program with the Arts and Business Council of New York.

Grace Galu Kalambay (Musician/Performer) is a vocalist, actor, guitarist, and composer. She combines the sounds of her Irish and Congolese heritage with her LES upbringing in a soulful and gritty twist. Kalambay was recently featured in Buskerball 2022, and recorded Firelight with Fearless Music. Her composition, “Ordinary Sentiment” was featured in the Ed Burns film, Purple Violets' which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Grace devised The Mendelssohn Electric with Trusty Sidekick, and was cast as the lead in their production, The Gospel Electric, commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory. She is a core member of the band Soul Inscribed, and has for the third time been selected as a cultural ambassador for the American Music Abroad program. Kalambay is also a recipient of the NEFA NTP grant. Soul Inscribed has recently been signed to the music label, Tokyo Dawn and just released their EP, Tune UP. Kalambay is an artist in residence at HERE Arts Center and the composer for Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville. Kalambay voiced Wisdom in Nia Witherspoon’s production, The Dark Girl Chronicles (2021 at The Shed). She is currently touring Haint Blu with Urban Bush Women.

Lucianna Padmore (Musician/Performer) A Bronx native, New York-based drummer Lucianna Padmore has been praised by Modern Drummer magazine for “Deep grooves and serious fusion chops.” Lucianna’s versatile drumming is featured with artists in the Jazz, Hip-Hop, Funk, Rock, Pop, and Fusion genres. An alumnus of LaGuardia High School for Music and the Performing Arts and the New School University, she has received awards from Jazz at Lincoln Center and BMI for her jazz improvisation. Lucianna’s live and studio projects include residencies in and around the Tri-state area with the John Smith Trio, a member of HotJazz Jumpers, drummer for Singer-Songwriter Alyson Murray, Bertha Hope’s Nu Trio, and Quintet The Fiery String Sista. She also leads her own Quartet and releases music as an independent artist, with the current release of the single, Life Long Love Affair featuring Saxophonist Gerald Albright. As an educator, she is active in drum instruction and jazz outreach in N.Y. Tri-state area. Lucianna is featured in the book Sticks and Skins, Endorses Soul Tone cymbals, and plays Scorpion signature 3a Drum sticks.

Luisa Buitrago (Production Manager) is an artist from Colombia, exploring the fields of poetry, storytelling, mixed media, multimedia, and performing arts as a producer and performer. Dedicated to enjoying her life inside diverse communities in South Florida, Luisa has collaborated on projects that transform traditional and alternative stages into one-of-a-kind encounters. Nurturing artists’ needs and building creative spaces for their productions has guided Luisa to joint discoveries and futures, both joyful and imaginative. Her recent projects include “Anna In the Tropics,” a Pulitzer winner play by Nilo Cruz (2023, Miami New Drama), “Papá Cuatro,” a documentary theater Play by Juan Souki (2022, Miami New Drama), “Corporeal Decorum,” contemporary dance and multimedia by Liony Garcia (2022, The Ringling Museum), “National Water Dance,” a community-oriented multi-art celebration by National Water Dance Projects (2022, SMDCAC), “Where Home Is,” a navigational game-inspired sonic journey by Juraj Kojš (2021, Live Arts Miami and Knight Foundation), and “Devotion,” a contemporary dance performance by Rosie Herrera Dance Theater Company (2022 and 2023, ADF and tour). Luisa is honored and excited about her current full time Production Manager position with UBW, where new adventures await.

John D. Alexander (Lighting Supervisor) OFF-BROADWAY: Migration, Reflections on Jacob Lawrence (National Tour). DC AREA: Daphne's Dive, TRANS AM, Detroit 67, Children of Eden, This Bitter Earth, Topdog/Under Dog (Helen Hayes Nomination), Fabulation or the Re-Education of Undine, Marie and Rosetta, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Airness, Darius and Twig, Black Nativity, Disgraced, HERstory, Black Berry Winter, The Gospel at Colonus, Happiness (and Other Reasons to Die), King Lear, Broke-ology, American Moor, Anne and Emmett (National and European Tour). REGIONAL: SWEAT, Kill Move Paradise, Once, Paradise Blue, Skeleton Crew, Royale and The Snowy Day and Other Stories. TV: No Child (PBS). UPCOMING REGIONAL: Chad Deity, Mary’s Seacole and Sheepdog. UPCOMING WORLD PREMIERE: Crying on Television, Quamino’s Map, House of the Negro Insane, B.R.O.K.E.N. Code B.I.R.D. Switching and Hoola Hoopin Queen. www.johndalexanderlightingdesign.com 

Nicholas Hussong (Projections Designer, Haint Blu) is a creator of video, projections and film for live (and now digital) performance and events. Creative Producer at Dwight Street Book Club. Broadway: Skeleton Crew. Other regional credits include: Until the Flood (13 regional and international locations); Haint Blu, Hair & Other Stories (Urban Bush Women); These Paper Bullets, Drama Desk Nomination (Yale Rep, Atlantic Theater Company, Geffen Playhouse); Woman's Party (Clubbed Thumb); Grounded (Alley); Arden Theater, Playmakers Rep, Berkshires Theatre Group, Marc Jacobs, Nashville Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Tony Awards (CBS). He also designed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, China, Canada, and Vienna. Co-Creator of FEAST, an immersive dining experience with Listen&Breathe (Nantucket, Ireland, and please, hopefully, someday, the United States). Adjunct Lecturer New School of Drama and USC. Yale MFA. UAW and USA829 www.nickhussong.com

Nina Angela Mercer (Writer, Haint Blu) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker. Her plays include Gutta Beautiful; ITAGUA MEJI: A ROAD AND A PRAYER; Gypsy & The Bully Door; and A Compulsion for Breathing. Her writing is published in Black Renaissance Noire; Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance; BreakBeat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Press); Are You Entertained? Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century (Duke University Press); Performance Research Journal; Represent! New Plays for Multicultural Young People (Bloomsbury Press); and A Gathering of the Tribes Online Magazine. Find more at www.ninaangelamercer.com.