THIS IS RISK

For more than 40 years, the theatrical dance company Urban Bush Women has challenged convention with genre-defying works that embrace the power of radical storytelling. Formed in 1984 by visionary choreographer and MacArthur fellow Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the company has uplifted and amplified the unheard stories from African American communities and beyond. And from the start, Urban Bush Women challenged notions of what dancers onstage could look like.

Performing at BAM for the first time since 2015, this boundless ensemble presents THIS IS RISK, featuring three powerful, disparate works by Zollar. I Live in Music is a vibrant new reimagining of Zollar's 1994 original, a love letter to jazz anchored by Ntozake Shange’s poem of the same name. Shelter (1988) explores contemporary and historical relationships of people displaced by homelessness, the middle passage, and forced migration. Batty Moves (1995) honors Sarah Baartman, the so-called “Hottentot Venus” taken from South Africa to appear in European sideshows in the early 1800s, and celebrates seeing beauty in all the different shapes, sizes, and shades we come in.