Urban Bush Women presents the New York Premiere of "Haint Blu"
Company:
Urban Bush Women
Urban Bush Women (UBW) presents the Harlem, New York Premiere of Haint Blu, an immersive dance theater work seeped in memory and magic on June 10, 13-16, & 18, 2023 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 521 West 126th Street New York, 10027. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased online.
Conceived, directed, and choreographed by UBW Co-Artistic Directors Chanon Judson & Mame Diarra Speis, Haint Blu is an ensemble dance-theater work is seeped in memory and magic. Known as the color that Southern families paint their front porches to ward off bad spirits, Haint Blu uses performance as a center and source of healing, taking audiences from movement into stillness and rest. The production arose from the urgent concern for the wellness of Black Women+. With its focus on remembering, reclaiming, releasing, and restoring, the work explores what has been lost across generations and what can be recovered.
“Haint Blu calls us to be inside a place where we can access our histories and full creative power,” says UBW Co-Artistic Director Mame Diarra Speis. “With Haint Blu, we are presenting a work that encourages people to journey, to ask questions, to be curious about their lineage and the untapped potential for collective healing."
Haint Blu takes audiences through non-traditional performance spaces and geographical sites chosen in collaboration with community and presenting partners. Honoring and absorbing local history, each Haint Blu performance is a site-specific container of moments unique to that community.
Haint Blu investigates the holistic healing that helped ancestors thrive, and imagines how those practices might restore the bodies and minds of Black Women+ today. In a time of upheaval, the production also amplifies what artists and organizations are doing to regenerate and heal. All UBW community partners help inform and enrich Haint Blu’s residency, with performances being just one element and outcome of this process.
Join UBW for Haint Blu from June 10, 13-16, and 18, 2023 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, NY! Limited space is available. Buy tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/haint-blu-tickets-619904670557
About Urban Bush Women
Urban Bush Women (UBW) burst onto the dance scene in 1984, with bold and exciting works that brought under-told stories to life through the art and vision of award-winning founder, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. The UBW 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 Mame Diarra Speis.
Off the concert stage, UBW has developed an extensive community engagement program titled BOLD: Builders, Organizers, and Leaders through Dance. UBW’s largest community engagement project is its Summer Leadership Institute (SLI). This 10-day intensive training program connects dance professionals with community-based artists/activists in a learning experience to leverage the arts as a vehicle for civic engagement. UBW launched the Choreographic Center Initiative (CCI) in January 2016. The CCI supports the development of women choreographers of color and other underheard voices.
As UBW prepares to celebrate its upcoming 40th Anniversary, the organizations continues to use dance as both the message and the medium to rally diverse audiences through choreography, community, and collaboration.
For more information, visit www.urbanbushwomen.org.
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