Dancer-choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar stood before 1,000 people on the Providence Performing Arts Center stage Saturday night. "Dance is my medicine," she said, quoting Caribbean-American dancer-choreographer Pearl Primus.
Primus' writings narrated "Walking With Pearl - Africa Diaries," the last of five pieces performed by Zollar's Brooklyn-based, award-winning dance company Urban Bush Women.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Zollar's founding of UBW, whose mission is to "engage a diverse audience by producing bold and life affirming work based on women's experiences, African American history and cultural influences of the African Diaspora," according to the UBW Web site.
After nine months of planning, Andre Thompson '05 brought UBW to Providence. The visit marks the transition weekend between February's Black History Month and March's Women's History Month. During a time when the nation is celebrating both black and female communities, Thompson said it is important to bring in this black female dance troupe that has survived longer than most of its performing peers.
He got to know the company through a 2003 internship with UBW, where the "spaces of transformation and growth ... found in Urban Bush Women" were important to him as a gay black man and taught him about "being fierce - believing in yourself and overcoming obstacles," Thompson said.
The opening piece, "Give Your Hands to Struggle," began in silence, marked with a spoken list of influential black women, including Primus and Shirley Chisholm. The soloist presented clean and vigorous choreography, but was limited to characteristic modern dance styles: slow, open arm and leg extensions with rapid rotations and turns. The dancer only moved left and right on a single horizontal plane, always gravitating back to center.
As the showcase progressed, the pieces became more eclectic and unique.
In "Walk with Pearl," dancers celebrated "Mother Africa," represented by a warm orange light shining at an angle on stage left. Dancers en pointe leaped and shimmied in choreography that referenced ballet, West African dance, the Ethopian Shoulder Dance and even yoga. Loose sheer shirts, wrapped skirts and flowing pants all reinforced the wide spinning movements and jumps.
"Batty Moves" featured six muscular dancers of various heights and builds in small spandex outfits proudly rapping at center stage. Each rap was different - one addressed motherhood and another made reference to Kelis' song "Milkshake." The dancers lined up with their backs to the audience and shook, gyrated and did the Cha-Cha.
Midperformance the house lights went up and the dancers encouraged "Big Mamas" with "batties," a Caribbean term for buttocks, to stand up.
Thompson said he loved the piece, choreographed by Zollar as a reaction against the "holdin' (and) tuckin'" of the ballet world. "A warrior came out in me," he said.
It reinforces the company's "vision of black women helping each other toward a common truth," while still acknowledging that everyone has her own experience, Thompson said.
He knew the event was a success when those who were neither black nor female "still got it," he said.
One student, Vanessa Huang '06, left the performance singing a song from "Batty Moves" and wishing she had more opportunities to see dance, she said.
To Thompson, the experience was a "revolutionary" celebration in community. During their residency, UBW also performed at Providence's Black Repertory Theater and taught Brown dancers as well as Hope High School students. Thompson made over 200 free tickets to Saturday's performance available to Providence youth groups, along with the help of Kath Connolly '89, senior associate director of the Swearer Center for Public Service.
Thompson said he would have preferred that the Brown campus had a performance space to facilitate the UBW performance but said he was happy the PPAC location got students off of College Hill and "made people (outside of Brown) feel more welcome."
