Urban Bush Women: Collab Lab Sharing and Community Conversation
Join us for a unique glimpse into the creative process as 19 St. Olaf dance students share the culmination of their week-long intensive residency with the legendary Urban Bush Women (UBW).
Throughout the week, students have worked intimately with UBW BOLD facilitators in a Collab Lab, using dance, song, and creative writing to synthesize their collective vision for the community. This informal “sharing” will showcase the artistic products born from that collaboration, followed by a facilitator-guided conversation.
About Urban Bush Women
URBAN BUSH WOMEN is a groundbreaking Black women-led theatrical dance company and social activism ensemble. Founded in 1984 by visionary choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, UBW is an engine and amplifier for the stories of Black Women+. UBW combines radical performance, deep engagement, and ancestral knowledge from the African diaspora into a force that is urgent, forward-looking, and essential. UBW has defied expectations for over 40 years. The very bodies of its founding members – Black women of various shapes and sizes – changed the landscape of who could be seen on stage as a dancer. The work placed the concerns of such women center stage. UBW embraces radical storytelling to activate social change. Whether creating genre-defying work for the stage, guiding the development of Black Women+ choreographers and producers, organizing for justice through artmaking, UBW is an innovator, operating at the vanguard. www.urbanbushwomen.org
About UBW’s BOLD Programming
BOLD (Builders Organizers, and Leaders through Dance) is Urban Bush Women’s unique approach to facilitating a dialogue within an organization. They facilitate multiple workshop possibilities for a variety of groups and contexts, from dance studios to board retreats, using a unique blend of dialogue and movement. Leveraging dance as a catalyst for social change & consistently seeking the broadest range of engagement possible has led UBW to train rigorously in dialogue facilitation, analyzing racism and its manifestations in group dynamics, and in the field of brain-compatible dance education (a holistic practice rather than dance instruction as mimicry)—in addition to concert dance technique & performance.
About UBW’s Collab Lab
Urban Bush Women facilitates artistic creation based on themes that emerge from the group. With an emphasis on dance and song, they use various artistic genres, including creative writing and visual art, to process, synthesize, and communicate. Through the Collaboration Lab, participants create an artistic product reflecting both their learning and their vision for the community.
