The “dance voices” of strong women will make a clarion call Saturday evening at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in a double pairing of dance companies offering not just glitzy surface but real content, story, mythology in a thoughtful program of contemporary dance.
The evening’s main offering is the 30-year-old Urban Bush Women, straight outta Brooklyn, a seven-member tribe of fierce female dancers under the direction of ‘chief visioning officer’ Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.
UBW brings to the beautiful terrain of the recently refurbished Ford, the West Coast premiere of their newest work, Walking with ‘Trane, a nonlinear story-based dance inspired by the musical life and spiritual journey of John Coltrane. In this work, Urban Bush Women explore the dynamics of Coltrane’s music through experimental movement and an original soundscape inspired by his musical legacy.
Opening Saturday’s program is CONTRA-TIEMPO, the Los Angeles-based Latin dance theater company presenting SHE WHO: Frida, Mami & Me, concerning Mexican visual artist Frida Kahlo and Nigerian deity Mami Wata. A neat tie-in to Urban Bush Women has African-American choreographer and former UBW member Marjani Forté-Saunders, as the dance maker behind “She Who.”
Ford Signature Series: Urban Bush Women and CONTRA-TIEMPO | John Anson Ford Amphitheatre | Saturday Aug 27, 8 pm