Founded in 1984 by choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women infuses its blend of modern dance and street moves with African-American tradition. Zollar draws on sources as wildly divergent as her childhood double-Dutch jump-roping and fraternity step shows. Her dancers are furiously athletic--just like those double Dutchers--and they've been praised for their powerful mixing of the physical and the verbal.
An artist in residence at Florida State University, Zollar sets her dances not only to music but to the spoken word, with accompanying poems by the likes of Ntozake Shange ("For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide--").
A Shange text will accompany "Soul Deep to the Bone," to be danced Saturday. Other pieces include "Hands Singing Song," with text by poet Abiodun Oyewole, and "Shelter," with texts by Hattie Gossett, Carl Hancock Rux and Laurie Carlos.
Urban Bush Women perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 28, at Centennial Hall. Tickets are $16 to $28, with half-price tickets for students and children, and 20-percent off for UA faculty and staff. A free discussion of the troupe will take place at 7:15 p.m. at in Room 102 of the Center for English as a Second Language, 1100 E. N. Campus Drive, north of Centennial Hall. For tickets and information call the box office at 621-3341.
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