Haint Blu

Founded in 1984 by choreographerJawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women (UBW) seeks to bring the untold and under-told histories and stories to light through dance. We do this from a woman-centered perspective and as members of the African Diaspora community in order to create a more equitable balance of power in the dance world and beyond. For 40+ years, we continue to use dance as both the message and the medium to bring together diverse audiences through innovative choreography, community collaboration and artistic leadership development.

Urban Bush Women

Opening Saturday, June 10th | Additional performance dates: Tuesday, June 13th -  Friday, June 16th, & Sunday, June 18th

St Mary's Episcopal Church

Thank you for your interest in seeding the NYC premiere of UBW's "Haint Blu" by Co-Artistic Directors Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis. Tickets for this date are sold out. Please free free to join the waiting list.

PLEASE NOTE: Haint Blu is an immersive site-specific work that will be performed both in and outdoors and includes long periods of standing with moments of walking.

Haint Blu, is an ensemble dance-theater work 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 us through movement into stillness and rest: remembering, reclaiming, releasing, and restoring. It is an embodied look into familial lines and the movements, histories and stories of our elders and ancestors. It reflects on what has been lost across generations and what can be recovered. Haint Blu takes us to the magical place where spirits share their legacies, journey onward, and leave the thick residue of their knowing behind.

“You summon ghosts, you don’t know where they’ll take you. Happily, the spirits brought to haunting life by Urban Bush Women’s “Haint Blu,” an extraordinary dance-theater event took us from benign gathering to harrowing memory to explosive emotion to culminate in a luminous, otherworldly sense of power, affirmation, and redemption.” — Reprinted from the <a href="https://www.artburstmiami.com/dance-articles/review-urban-bush-womens-collaboration-with-mdcs-live-arts-evokes-past-in-site-specific-performance" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Artburst Miami review by Jordan Levin</a>

“Haint Blu, is [Urban Bush Women's] most in-depth and community-connected project together. Founded by the visionary Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in New York in 1984, UBW is now led by co-artistic directors Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis. Performers on an incandescent plane of their own, Judson and Speis are charged with guiding a company whose mission extends far beyond performance to profound work in community building, fostering artists, and activism. Judging by Haint Blu, UBW is in excellent hands.” — Reprinted from the <a href="https://www.artburstmiami.com/dance-articles/review-urban-bush-womens-collaboration-with-mdcs-live-arts-evokes-past-in-site-specific-performance" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Artburst Miami review by Jordan Levin</a>

Haint BluConception, Creation, Direction, &amp; Choreography by Chanon Judson &amp; Mame Diarra Speis, Co-Artistic Directorsin collaboration with the company: Courtney J. Cook, Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Symara Johnson, Bianca Leticia Medina, and Mikaila WareLuisa Buitrago &amp; James Lanius III, Production ManagersJaimé Yawa Dzandu, Community CoordinatorLori Gassie, Costume Design CoordinatorJamie Godwin, Associate Video DesignerNicholas Hussong, Production Designer, Assistant DirectorKashia Kancey, Performer &amp; ApprenticeKeola Jones, Performer &amp; Apprentice Grace Galu Kalambay, Composer, Performer &amp; Musical DirectorNina Angela Mercer, WriterPia Monique Murray, Associate Producer/CCI 2.0 Producing FellowLucianna Padmore, Musician/PercussionistJamal Peoples, Musician/KeyboardJolie Saltiel, Tour &amp; Company ManagerEverett Saunders, Sound Designer, ComposerJonathan D. Secor, Project ProducerShirazette Tinnin, ComposerBill ToLes, Sound Designer &amp; EngineerTalvin Wilks, DramaturgNia Witherspoon, PerformerTuce Yasak, Lighting DesignerArianne Zager, Costume DesignerHaint Blu performances are proudly sponsored by Jazzmobile and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.Urban Bush Women 40th-anniversary leadership funding provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Additional funding is provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.Haint Blu was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts&#x27; National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. Haint Blu is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation &amp; Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, YARD INC, Live Arts Miami, Williams College, and NPN. The Creation &amp; Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.orgAdditional Residency and Development support: LMCC&#x27;s Residency Program, Arts &amp; Culture on Governors Island, Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, and Lumberyard&#x27;s Technical Rehearsal Program.St. Mary&#x27;s Episcopal ChurchSt. Mary’s Manhattanville is the “I am not afraid” church, standing up as a community of faith on the unceded land of the Munsee Lenape people, in West Harlem to pursue justice and peace for the poor and oppressed, to pray and care for the sick, lonely and at risk and to put into practice the message of the Gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit. SERVING THE WEST HARLEM COMMUNITY SINCE 1823Haint Blu: Harlem Community ChorusSavona Bailey-McClain (West Harlem Arts Fund); Aleathia Brown, Rylona Watson (Harlem Arts Alliance); Theo Qu Yang (University of Buffalo Alum); Jaimé Dzandu (UBW BOLD Artistic Coordinator); Dani Criss, The Artist (UBW BOLD Facilitator); Devin Joyner (UBW Haint Blu Intern)

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Haint Blu

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